Drachenblut
by Fractalforge
Summary: This is a ridiculous summary, but here I go anyway: OZ is developing a secret weapons system. As the Gundam pilots and others try to find information, they gradually realize that Heero Yuy is something different than what he appears to be...Cyberpunk, s
1. Drachenblut: Phase 01

  
Gundam Wing is the property of Sotsu Agency, Bandai, and Sunrise. No infringement is intended. Please contact me at fractalforge@hotmail.com if you'd like to give me comments, and visit http://www.geocities.com/fractalforge/index.html for the latest version of all my work. All feedback is appreciated.   
(ff.net version, prologue and part one condensed.)   
  


DRACHENBLUT   
  
  


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"A designer knows that he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery.   
  


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Status Report: November 14, AC 193.   
Re: Project 7870   
From: J   
To: G, S, H, O   
Encrypted in CRYCELT code 

/G, my reply to your last query about the progress of my "weapon" may have been somewhat incomplete considering the fact that none of you were thoroughly briefed on its nature. Outlined below is the general concept./ 

/It is probably necessary for me to review some fundamentals of mobile suit mechanics, since they are relevant. What most beginner pilots, and even many expert pilots, are not aware of, is that the maximum operating limits for a system are NOT determined by the maximum amount of stress that can be placed on the parts. If this were true, mobile suits would be able to perform at levels several orders of magnitude over the current levels. Instead, a system's operating limits are simply arbitrary values set by the system designer to facilitate control and safety. Even extremely efficient machines require these: for instance, our own Tallgeese and Wing Zero machines were designed so that they would only be operable if some sort of system limits were established within the operating systems. As you remember, at the time we designed them we had no computers powerful enough; nor any pilots strong enough; to test or even simulate their "limits"./ 

/To control the nearly infinite potential power of a mobile suit, a pilot would need nearly infinite coordination, almost perfect reflexes, and total awareness of the suit's true operating potential./ 

/The as-of-now theoretical Mobile Dolls attempt to overcome these obstacles by replacing the pilot with a computer program, but implementing an AI system that is both tactically shrewd and perfectly synchronized with the suit itself is problematic. This is mostly due to the fact that the Mobile Doll machine learning program generates its combat algorithms based on imperfect human pilots. Furthermore, there is still a communication time lag between the mobile doll system's processors and the input stems of the actual machines./ 

/Our own ZERO system also attempts to increase a suit's operating limits by increasing the synchronization between the pilot and the mobile suit's computer. It amplifies the pilot's brainwaves and uses them to create "macros" for various operations. However, the commands can only come as fast as the pilot can think; and there is always the risk of the ZERO system "misinterpreting" the pilot's commands. Since technology is not yet at the state in which we can read brainwaves with any sort of accuracy, the ZERO system will never optimize a pilot's performance beyond perhaps 125 or 130%. (Of course, this assumes that brainwaves themselves are accurate pictures of the pilot's true thought processes)... in any case, we must also consider the potential mental instabilities that can be created by the system's use./ 

/Perhaps we were wrong to create such a system. As of now, we can only hope that my new system will supercede the ZERO system and its dangerous potential side effects./ 

/To the point: the problem with all these methods of amplifying or improving the pilot's performance is that it considers the pilot and the suit two separate entities./ 

/And a "perfect" battle system rectifies this problem by actually combining the two... bridging the gap between the pilot and the machine./ 

/This is my goal: the creation of a "Strong" artificial intelligence system, capable of actual learning and self-modification. It is to be coded on such a level that it bypasses all system languages and BIOS interfaces, and communicates directly with the machine addresses of the suit itself. Such a system will, perhaps, eliminate all obstacles standing between us and total control over a mobile suit's nearly infinite power./ 

/The task of developing such a system, I believe, is several levels above anything I have ever attempted before. The way will indeed be difficult; and there is a good probability that logistics may make this endeavor completely impossible. However, I am confident that if success is achieved even on a rudimentary level, the potential for further success will be nearly infinite./   


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DRACHENBLUT 

Chapter One 

/////////////////////////////// 

L3's artifical dawn was still hours to come as Aleksandr Morovsky awoke from unsteady slumber. Someone was pounding on his door. 

Actually, several someones. He could hear heavy boots shifting in the apartment building's hallway, the floor creaking under its unusual load. In the corner, on a dresser next to his withering tube of hand lotion and his lamp made out of an old port bottle, a green digital display read 3:04. 

"Shit." The man's eyes went wide. He was an ungainly person, about forty-five and quite overweight, and the shadows from the dim ambient glow of the colony slashed shadows across his belly and shirt. His hair was greasy, his face was unshaven, and his temples ached with a slight hangover. He waited for another sound and heard the hissing crunch of the floorboards shifting again. 

/They found me./ 

"Military Police! Open up!" 

"Shit," he repeated hopelessly to the darkness. "Shit." 

/I'm dead./ 

Morovsky glanced out his nearby window to the creamy yellow pavement outside in the night -- five stories down to the ground. There was no hope of getting down the side of the building; he didn't have a balcony or any rope or even a fire escape. A bead of sweat rolled down his plump face and fell noiselessly into his white pillow. 

The man reached over to the television screen on the nearby table and typed a code into the remote control. He had installed the microcamera in a light fixture in the hallway many months before, as a vain precaution against something like this. The TV flashed on, giving a black-and-white, fuzzy view of the dim hallway outside. Some dust or something seemed to have settled on the lens, but he could definitely make out several shadowy figures outside his doorway. They held their rifles at the ready. 

/But could they have figured it out...?/ 

He reached into his dresser with a grimace and pulled out a shiny silver pistol. It was illegal to own guns on-colony, but that didn't matter now. Chances were, they already had enough on him to put him in front of a firing squad. Morovsky slowly loaded all six chambers of the gun and held it next to his head, barrel upwards. 

"Military police! Open up!" 

/It doesn't matter how they knew. Maybe the whole thing was a molehunt. Maybe the synthesis plans were just a fairy-tale. All that matters is that the OZ secret police are pounding on my door at three AM and I'm going to die painfully in a few hours. Maybe sooner./ 

"Open this door!" 

Morovsky crept like a cornered animal out of his bedroom across to the first shadowy room of his apartment, closer and closer to the pounding sound. Wary of the squad of trained killers less than three feet from him, he braced his right shoulder against the doorframe. Gradually placing his right ear against the flimsy wall of the apartment, he could hear several whispering voices in the hall, definitely at least four or five soldiers. 

/They'll be armed with automatic weapons... and I've only got six bullets.../ 

His heart hammered in his ears and chest like the thrashing of an engine. They would come in looking right at him... if his reflexes were fast enough, maybe he could tag the first one. The rest would fall back into the hall and wait until he made a move. 

/I may be a dead man, but I'm not a corpse just yet./ 

His odds were pitifully small. But they were still odds. And, of course, there was an excellent chance that they would kill him in the gunfight, preventing them from being able to torture him... Morovsky's sweaty body pressed up against the wall as he settled into his crouch. He could wait until they decided to move. He listened to himself breathe for a few seconds. 

Their move was decidedly different from what he had expected. 

There were a few metallic snaps in the air, his ears rang, and the gun was out of his burning, numb hand and tumbling across the carpet. As the wooden door before him burst open, he could see the wallpaper and boarding next to his hand open up in pinpoint explosions. They'd disarmed him without setting eye on him. 

/Intelligence Department's infared vision system... they watched my body through the walls.../ 

Painful light flooded forth into the first room of the apartment. Figures in full OZ attire -- uniforms, gloves, and hats -- cast loud shadows on the soft carpet flooring. Morovsky blindly charged forward, in a last desperate hope to tackle his attackers; but a gun butt slammed into his forehead from somewhere. 

Almost welcoming the release from reality, the hapless mole slipped into blank unconsciousness. 

/////////////////////////////// 

"How's the search going, ma'am?" 

OZ System Administrator Garner glanced briefly up at her subordinate before returning her gaze to the computer screen. "Glad to see you up at this hour, Ballard." 

Not quite sure whether to interpret this as actual praise or an accusation of shirking his duty, the technician bowed his head. "I came as fast as I could, ma'am. What's going on?" 

"We caught a mole. I just got a call-in from the Operations Bureau.... he's alive, a little beat up, though. They're transporting him to K block right now." She adjusted her glasses for a moment before taking a sip of her coffee. "We gotta find out what he took and where he sent it." 

"Are they going to interrogate him?" 

Garner shrugged and brushed the black hair out of her eyes. "Yeah. Unfortunately, it'll be a few hours until the time they get around to asking him what we need to know... and if we're smart about working, we'll be done much sooner than that. Time is of the essence, Ballard, so get going!" 

Ballard sat down at the next workstation and turned on the terminal. "Maybe they'll give us a transcript of what he says. That way we'll be able to check our work." 

"You ever read an interrogation transcript before?" The system administrator's voice was laconic and slightly charmed. /We hire such innocents these days./ 

"N, no, ma'am." 

"Believe me, Ballard, you don't want to. Ops is too lazy to actually transcribe the things by hand, so they just run the recording through a computer. Problem is, they put in an onomonopoeia generator in the software; so you get to read KRRAKK when they break his vertebrae." 

The ruffled subordinate turned slightly green. "...I'll remember that." 

Garner shook her head and continued typing. "It'll be a pity if they kill this one, though. If I ran the circus, I'd hire either him or whatever friend of his wrote the code." 

"How far did he get?" 

"It's still hard to tell, really. But it looks as though he was able to access some of my own link allocation tables -- and not by brute force, either. That's pretty impressive. I think it'd take me a few years to find a way around my own password schemes; but it looks like this guy did it in under three months." 

Ballard's eyes widened as he began to type in command codes. "...That's amazing." 

"Yup. But on top of that, he got through the /old/ system administrator's barriers, it seems, accessing Clarke's XQS extension list. That's where I am now, at least." Garner shook her head and whistled. "Oh, yeah, that's right; before you get deep. I had to release about a trillion access barriers to get anywhere, so there are all these 'Access Violation' packets floating around. Just ignore 'em." 

"...What a nuisance." 

Garner shook her head ruefully. "Yeah, really. The higher-ups at the organization are all like, 'let's give everyone system privacy', so people who rank above us have higher access levels. Right now, I'm working off an admiral's account 'cause he's got better system privileges than I do." 

Ballard shook his head warily. "Um, can't we be prosecuted for doing that?" 

Garner only smirked. "You gonna rat yourself out?" 

This time the tech grinned. "Think not, ma'am!" 

There was total silence for five or ten minutes, save the constant rainy sound of keys being pressed. Then, like a thunderstorm breaking, Garner's fingers suddenly erupted into an unceasing flow of code. 

"Looks like I finally reached our mole's little burrow... insert a passcode... try again... Ballard! Get to 'cd10293.xrm', on the local server's root directory... I just unlocked it for you. Start modifying code so's my timer window won't expire! You've got eighteen seconds until the system locks me out, so hop to it!" 

Ballard nodded. "Ma'am!" 

Garner's eyes were like stars as the data streamed by on the screen. "Got a hit -- two hits -- here we go! Brilliant scheme he used there; I'll have to remember that. I've got access to his infonet, and I just cracked his disk partition. Let's see this list of files... they're not scrambled; so he must have just been working on a transmission of them... holy shit! Ballard, come here and look at this!! Let's see what this first file is...." 

"But I'm still rewriting the code on the xrm file --!" 

The pumped-up administrator stretched out an arm to grab the tech's chair, but as she prepared to yank him away from his keyboard her arm froze. As her eyes widened to round coins, her arm stretched horizontally out in the air like a support beam. 

Then it slowly dropped to her side and she collapsed into her chair. 

"Is this someone's idea of a fuckin' joke...?" 

////////////////////////////// 

When he regained consciousness, Morovsky was tied into a chair and staring at a pair of perfectly polished boots a few yards away. Gradually becoming cogent, he shook his head and followed the legs, the ceremonial sword, and the length of the half-shouldered cloak upward. As he saw the man's face, he felt the knot in his gut squeeze itself into a painful ulcer and his face become a mask of utter terror. 

OZ Vice Admiral Sethir Negon, dressed in full regalia, smiled back at him. 

/Oh, no... of all the possible people to command my capture op, I got the Grand Inquisitor.../ 

Morovsky, trying desperately to avoid the man's laconic yet immensely disturbing gaze, looked around him. The room he was in was probably an OZ interrogation cell, totally sealed and extremely bright. Heavily soundproofed, too 

/so no one hears the screaming/ 

as well as extremely white and reflective. The walls and floor were hard solid ceramic, coated with an ionic barrier to make it extremely smooth 

/so they can wash what's left of me out the cell when he's done.../ 

and durable. There was a solitary microphone pickup dangling from the ceiling of the white chamber, perhaps twenty feet in the air; and a video camera in one corner of the room. 

Negon's smile became a condescending, predatory grin. 

"I can see by the look on your face that you know who I am, Aleksandr Morovsky. To put it delicately, you've probably heard of rumors of those who've crossed my path... and rumors of what happens to them." 

Morovsky nodded, his brains aching from the concussion. 

"You may have also heard stories of what I have been known to do to traitors." Still smiling, the admiral unsheathed his ceremonial sword, the gleaming blade sliding out of the sheath with a metallic sound. As he lowered it into a carrying position, the blade clicked softly against the steel toe of Negon's right boot. 

"The choice is now yours. You can find out whether those rumors are true... or you can do exactly as I tell you." 

The mole nodded willingly. 

////////////////////////////// 

"Um, ma'am? What's going on? Ma'am?" 

Ballard's query was met with nothing but silence as Garner's jaw slowly dropped. He got up and glanced at her workstation, but saw nothing but a black screen... he hadn't been fast enough to get her more access. But the administrator had probably gotten a long enough window to read what was on the screen at the time... 

It took about ten seconds until Garner's face lost its ghostly aspect and returned to its normal appearance. 

"Ma'am?" 

/I should have known better than to work with this greenhorn around. But nooo, I thought that a mole like Morovsky could never have gotten too deep... What the hell was I thinking?! Now both of us are stuck in this shit, and stuck in it but good./ 

The administrator sighed and looked the tech in the eyes. "Ballard, I just got some... really, really bad news." 

Ballard gulped. "How bad?" 

Garner looked down and thought for a bit, then got up from her chair and approached her subordinate. He, of course, obediently stood up at attention; and she sighed ruefully. "Real bad. Insanely bad. Ten-year-development-process-ruined bad." 

"...That bad?" 

Her green eyes locked bitterly onto his hazel ones. "Yeah. We're going to be the ones who tells Ops that their mole managed to get his hands on some seriously illicit shit. And if anything I've heard about this operation's commander is true, HQ may be in a shoot-the-messenger mood." 

"Who's the commander, ma'am?" 

"...Negon." Garner watched with an I-knew-it-would-happen expression as Ballard's eyes widened and his lip began to quiver. Quickly, she raised her hands in a placating gesture and started talking again. "But if you do exactly what I say, we might just get out of this without getting court-martialed or worse. For now I think we're safe at least; we've got skills they need. Right now, all you can do is worry about doing your job better than you've ever done it before." 

Ballard's throat contorted a final time and his face became less green. "...That's good. I'll do the best I can, ma'am." 

Garner smiled. "Excellent. You got another thirty-six hours' energy in you?" 

The tech's mouth changed to a worried line. "Yeah. I'll probably need some caffiene soon, though..." 

/He may be naive and sickly and geeky, but he can stay awake for a day and a half. And that's all I really need.../ Garner smiled and exhaled. "That's just fine, Ballard." 

"I got used to it in college, ma'am. What's our first move?" 

Garner's first move was to coolly rip open an access panel on the main console and flip three red levers. 

"We seal the room." 

Next, she made a beeline for the phone and dialed 00013. Her voice was quick but calm. 

"Operations Control? This is System Administrator Marie Garner; serial number OZ-CSYS2313387. I'm at the twenty-eighth computer center. It looks like your mole hit the jackpot. I have a ten-seven-seven status... repeat, that's a ten-seven-seven security breach." She listened to the charmingly soft chirps from the other end as the operator started screaming hasty, panicked commands to subordinates for a few moments before hanging up the phone. 

"Ballard, I'm going to machine 104 to start ripping apart the machine transfer records. We need to see exactly what files he got and when he sent them. While I do that, you get to seal off the network and suspend all security rules." 

"Yes, ma'am." 

Garner's face was impassive, but inside her heart was pounding along at a hundred miles a minute. 

/Shit. Shit. Shit./ 

/I don't even think Ops has created procedures for dealing with something this big./ 

/And if that mole was half as smart as I thought he was.../ 

She quickly checked all the closed-circuit cameras to make sure no one was entering the building, then grabbed a keyboard and started frantically hacking through barriers and tracing command paths. 

/Then we don't have a chance in hell./ 

////////////////////////////// 

To be continued... 


	2. Drachenblut: Phase 02

Gundam Wing is the property of Sotsu Agency, Bandai, and Sunrise. No infringement is intended. Please contact me at fractalforge@hotmail.com if you'd like to give me comments, and visit http://www.geocities.com/fractalforge/index.html for the latest version of all my work. All feedback is appreciated.   


DRACHENBLUT 

Chapter Two 

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"Oh, the shark has pretty teeth dear; and he shows them pearly white... just a Deathscythe has the Death God, and he keeps it out of sight..." 

Evrett Davis, pilot and owner of the salvage craft Yevgeny Onegin, shuddered as the sounds of Duo Maxwell's singing wafted out of the bathroom. He had owed Howard a favor when he's agreed to give the kid a ride from Los Angeles to Seattle, but the braided teenager had a certain inimitable and unmistakable way of testing his patience. The man adjusted his baseball cap and scratched his face: a few days without shaving had caused a forest of prickly fuzz to appear beneath his chin and nose. He'd have to think about shaving before he hit the city. 

Davis sat down in a worn stuffed-plastic chair inside his craft's command room and started typing commands into the GPS system. The green-on-black display dispassionately churned out exactly what he'd expected: with any luck they'd make Seattle within four hours. 

The Yevgeny Onegin was an unapologetically ugly flat craft about a hundred meters long, with a lot of open spaces: basically, a barge adorned with hydraulics and cranes. Its crew of five subsisted by hauling up junk metal from the ocean floor, cleaning it, repairing it if it was possible; otherwise melting it down -- and selling it at market value. Around most major city harbors and many military ports, hundreds of years of seaborne commerce had practically coated the bottom with metal. 

Davis frowned again after hearing some more inane lyrics, then chuckled and looked at the shrouded lump on the repair deck of the craft. He had to admit it, but having to convey the kid and his associated chatter was a small price to pay to look at the mechanics and design of Deathscythe Hell. In all his fifty years in space, in the sea and out of it; even after pulling sunken OZ prototype suits out of the water (under cover of darkness, of course) he had never seen a piece of engineering even remotely in the same league as the black mecha. After swearing an oath of secrecy, he and his crew had recieved the privilege of seeing its ECM and thermoptic-cloak system in action. 

Duo was out of the bathroom now, wearing a black tank top and loose pants; his long brown hair dripping water over everything. "Yo, Captain Davis. Is it cool if I, like, drip on stuff?" 

The captain rolled his eyes. "This IS a boat, Maxwell. We see tropical storms on a regular basis. It's not as though water's going to hurt anything. Just stay out of the cabin." 

"Check." The Deathscythe pilot made a thumbs-up gesture. "...Listen, I really want to thank you guys for putting up with me. I really owe you." 

"Any friend of Howard's is a friend of mine... at least that's what I thought until I dragged your ass on board," intoned Davis, deadpan. "But having the chance to see your Deathscythe Hell more than makes up for your annoying presence." 

Duo shrugged and smiled. "I admire honesty in a person. It takes most people a few weeks before they tell me what a pain in the ass I am." 

The captain snorted. "They probably just realized it later. A ship is a very small place to share with somebody." He gestured to the shrouded lump on the deck. "I meant to ask you a question about your thermoptics." 

"Please, ask away." Duo made a show of 'modestly' looking at his nails. 

"It has to do with the reflection-cancellation system and the effect field. Does the fact that the mech is black have anything to do with its optics?" 

Duo rolled his eyes way back, thinking. "Good question. Actually, I thought at first that the black was just for intimidation an' looking cool. But the color -- the paint, I mean -- absorbs some of the EM emissions that the I-field doesn't. No reflections mean no detections... that's the principle." 

Davis nodded comprehendingly. "That makes sense. You seem to have a good head on you... even if you aren't putting its faculties to their best use." 

"I'm glad to hear that." Duo's face broke into a grin. "What with all of this hostility toward me, I'd have thought you'd have turned me into OZ by now." 

The captain shrugged. "Well, they'd probably shoot all of us anyway if they found out that we'd helped you... and then come down hard on the Sweeper Group. Besides, there's no love lost between me -- between any of my crew and OZ." 

Duo started to nod, but he was interrupted by an electronic /beep-beep/. "Excuse me; I've been paged." He yanked a small black box out of his trousers and read the message on it. His violet eyes dropped as he read the message. 

"Duo, it's your mother. Call me!" 

The first thought through his mind was: /Leave it to me to walk into a high-priority mission with wet hair./ 

The second: /I wish Professor G could have thought of a better code-phrase./ 

And the next: /I always wanted to see how the thermoptics worked over the open ocean../ 

Duo sighed and shrugged. "Yo, Davis!" 

The older man turned and grimaced. "What now?" 

The braided boy shrugged. "Sorry to deprive you of my enlightening presence, but I've been Code-Nined. I gotta split to somewhere. Have a good time in Seattle." 

Davis turned to face the ocean, scratched the white hair on the side of his head and tried to think of something sarcastic to say. He failed, though, as his curiosity overtook him. "...Where are you goin'?" 

But Duo, wet hair streaming behind him, was already running towards the black-clothed lump on the deck. Over his shoulder, he yelled, "Not here, that's where. Thanks a lot, old man!" and disappeared beneath the shrouds. 

Forty seconds later, the Gundam Deathscythe Hell doffed its black dropcloth and extended its wings. As the thermoptic panels powered up, the giant mecha faded from existance like a ghost or phantom, leaving only ripples and a loud mechanical /hiss/ in the salty sea air. 

/////////////////////////////// 

It was early morning, before the colony's artificial light had begun to appear. On the eleventh floor of OZ Computer Center #28, located on Colony L3 X0909; System Administrator Marie Garner plopped down in her chair. The dark-haired woman silently regarded the terminal of Machine 104 with detatched fury and a familiar sinking feeling in her stomach. 

/Joy of joys.../ 

Machine 104 was a supercomputer mainframe about the size of a large refrigerator, installed in a superclean room seven floors below. Two of the thousands of cables running from it were attached to a small, insignificant-looking monitor and keyboard sitting on a desk on one side of the eleventh story control room. 

/I gotta figure out what Morovsky stole./ 

She took a sip of her coffee. 

/But I've got to do it behind the backs of my superiors. Because Vice Admiral Negon's running this operation... and if Negon figures out that I know more than what I'm supposed to, I'm going to get shot. Maybe worse./ 

And gazed into the screen as the monitor warmed up. 

/And I DO know more than I should./ 

"Yo, Ballard!" 

/A hell of a lot more./ 

The tech looked up from his workstation at the other side of the large room and adjusted his glasses. "Ma'am?" 

"Did you suspend the system's security yet?" 

Ballard nodded. "Yeah, while you were getting the coffee. Now hopefully we'll be able to work... We also got a call-in from the Operations Bureau." 

"Oh? Wha'd they say?" 

"We've got permission to route all service requests out to the other centers. We've got this place to ourselves now. They asked if we wanted support personel, but I said we didn't." 

Garner moved her black hair out of her eyes and started typing. "Good thinking. I'll call them in a few minutes and tell them that we've got the situation under control. That'll give us some peace and quiet for a while; enough time to figure out how the mole did his thang... and enough time to figure out what we're going to say when they debrief us. We certainly can't tell them the truth." 

"Why not?" 

The Administrator sighed. "Because I thought he was small-fry. They got me out of bed a few hours ago too, and I just wanted to get everything done and get out of here. I thought we could use some shortcuts and violate some system rules. Like working off accounts with higher access than we really have. We both did it." 

"...Right." 

"But this shit goes so deep that now they're going to want to know exactly how we work our magic. If we tell Ops the truth, we'll lose our jobs." 

/YOU'LL lose your job, Ballard. You didn't read that file. You're still clueless. You didn't see the secret that I saw./ 

/All YOU did was violate some procedures./ 

/I saw what was in that computer./ 

/I saw that document./ 

Ballard's face became a picture of reluctant acceptance. "...Guess it's too late to change things now. Do you want me to help you with looking at the machine records now, or...?" 

"No, Ballard. You get to start looking at his directory and figuring out his encryption methods." She typed a command and frowned as the machine spit it back at her. "Don't read what you decipher. You don't want to. Believe me." 

The tech shrugged and got working and tossed his coffee cup into the pile of trash in the corner of the room. "Who's the mole?" 

Garner sighed. "A guy named Aleksandr Morovsky. You didn't know him... he worked here for about three months after this center was established, but then quit.. around the same time as Clarke got fired. You have his job now." 

Ballard raised an eyebrow, interested. "...Huh. So someone could cause a 1077 security breach... from my position? With my level of access?" 

Garner frowned. "I don't know how he did it. But we're gonna find out." 

Electricity arced between synapses in her mind, and she pulled up records and linked logic pathways. 

The work, looking for correlation between various times Morovsky had accessed the system and a report of various breached files, was too temporary to waste time writing a program for. It was only about six minutes of manual work, and writing and debugging a program for it would take ten. And it needed to get done fast so she could establish a pattern between Morovsky's login times and the reported data breaches she had. 

She took a sip of coffee. 

Besides, unlike complex programming... she could think as she worked. 

/I need to find him./ 

/I need to find what he did./ 

/I need to understand how he covered his tracks, and then cover mine./ 

/And I need to do it before Morovsky tells Negon what he took... and Ops starts prying into this mess./ 

/Right now, they'll shut up and leave me alone. I called in a 1077 security breach, which is "Central System Contamination." There's some truth to that statement, but not a lot of it. Actually, I don't think a disaster code exists for this situation./ 

/What really matters is that Ops knows that I understand this system better than anyone; and I'm doing my damnest to fix it right now. They won't interrupt me or screw with me. Hopefully I fooled Ballard too -- he seems to think that this is still a simple matter of violating procedures... and I'm just covering our tracks./ 

/Maybe for him it is, but not for me./ 

/I've got to keep everybody in the dark except me. I've got to play all the cards I've got, and play them well, if I want to get out of this./ 

/I've got to think up a lie to use when that sadist Negon can get the mole to spill his guts... no pun intended./ 

/I know what Morovsky took... at least, the latest thing he took. And it was hot shit, way too hot for me to know about./ 

/The twenty-eighth computer center is like pretty much every network hub on L3: messy and crowded. The system won't show traces if they're hidden right. I can make it, as long as I can understand it.../ 

/So, as I work, I'm going to let my mind wander. And I'm going to see what I come up with./ 

/In the beginning.../ 

/When the OZ military syndicate got a toehold in the Space Colonies, instant and reliable communication had been necessary between OZ officials on earth and in space. The folks in charge needed a way to communicate easily./ 

/Each individual colony has totally unique systems for commerce and communication. For instance, this colony -- L3 X0909 -- has a fiber-optic information network, and dedicated vidphone lines./ 

/But colonies on higher technological levels, such as most of the L1 chain, have already progressed beyond fiber and had gone totally wireless. Poorer colonies such as the L2 group didn't have the money to feed everyone; let alone develop and install a high-tech communication system -- they're still using nothing but analog data lines./ 

/The big problem was that there was no standard, and that none of the systems that existed could handle heavy-ass traffic like OZ wanted./ 

/Even before Operation Daybreak happened, Trieze was all about total control over the Earth Sphere. That's one of the reasons we were delayed past the original start date: we didn't have a system for Earth-Colony communications in time. Several plans were developed and abandoned; all due to inefficiency, cost, or security issues./ 

/The final plan was ESIN: Earth-Space Information Network. It's what we use right now. Six central system elements: one on earth and one at each Lagrange point. Large-ass, manned, and extremely heavily armored communications satellites. Each one directs traffic to us: the network hubs./ 

/The twenty-eighth of these -- this place -- was installed as soon as we appeared here. Berend Clarke, the old system administrator, was dismissed after three months; and command of the computer center had shifted to me./ 

/Morovsky quit then, too./ 

Garner stopped: no pattern was forming between the mole's computer use and the various files that had been reported "branched" -- or monitored. 

/This makes my life SO much more complicated. This means that either Morovsky was somehow hacking while away from the computer OR he'd written a virus to do the hacking for him OR he had a physical bug on a wire OR he wasn't the only mole./ 

/Shit./ 

She continued looking for a pattern, comparing two large documents onscreen. 

/It all comes down to this center. Morovsky used to work here. Morovksy's got some sort of trap or system here so he can read the data going across the thing. Morovsky used this center's computers to crack the code on that file and read it./ 

/Drachenblut./ 

/He knew just as much as I know...well, only a little more... and now Sethir Negon's torturing him to death./ 

/Drachenblut device./ 

/Drachenblut. Advanced tactical system for.../ 

/Stop that. Worry about the problem right here./ 

/This center./ 

/Twelve-story building. Three basement levels and a giant vault with a power reactor. Used to be a library and government archive, but the books and disks got moved. It was already equipped to handle huge servers and data traffic: the building was square, and its exterior windows are made bulletproof and shatterproof. The roof was equipped with a helipad and various comm dishes and wires linking the machines inside to the colony's information network./ 

/Morovsky worked on the construction and installation crew./ 

/Information comes in from the L3 ESIN element through a transmission dish installed on the outside of the colony. This dish is attached to this building via an armored pipeline containing fiber-optic cable. Runs through the colony's walls much like a water or sewage system./ 

/This huge-ass mass of cable is directly connected to the computer center at the third basement level, and leads into a vertical, cylindrical armored core. This core stretches through the center of the building, straight on up. Except for the entrance and the ninth floor -- which has spare parts and stuff -- each level of the building houses nothing but huge-ass computers, metal, and wires. 

/And Morovsky knew that, because he built it. He knew all that.../ 

/It has to be in this building. But not there -- it hasn't been decrypted yet.../ 

/The guts of this building are those 131 supercomputers we got in here. The first and second floors of the basement are of decryptors and encryptors, which encode signals going to the ESIN L3 network element -- and decode signals coming from it. The code they use is CRYCELT -- our own 256-digit cipher./ 

/He might have installed some sort of bug there; something to read what those machines crank out... not very likely, though, since he'd have to read absolutely everything... he still wouldn't know when one signal began and ended.../ 

/The second floor's array condenses the packets going towards the ESIN uplink dish into one continuous flow, regulated by the OZ system clocks. The heartbeat. The third floor's computers take the decrypted signal from the uplink dish and expand it into distinct packets.../ 

/Or he could have his bugs there; maybe; watching all of that... that might happen, but those floors are the hardest to access and break into./ 

/But the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and tenth floors of the computer center consist simply of recording machines, assigned to keep records of all traffic moving from L3 X0909 to ESIN./ 

/That would tell him when files were moved, but not what they were... no./ 

/The eleventh floor is the building's control center. Climate and humidity systems, electrical power, and physical defenses. System maintenance. Where I am now. This floor has its own central server, too.../ 

/He had definite access to this floor... and his files are on a computer on this floor... the best possibility./ 

/The top floor and roof, covered with dishes and vidphone lines... all the shit that connects the core to the various machines on the colony./ 

/Or it could be there./ 

Garner took a deep breath, grabbed a pen and paper, and started scribbling. 

Floor Function Tap Possibility 

12 Connections to L3 independent nets and servers Possible   
11 Control Floor Probable   
10 Recording no   
9 Maintenance Floor (tools, spare parts) no   
8 Recording no   
7 Recording no   
6 Recording no   
5 Recording no   
4 Recording no   
3 Packet Splitters (ESIN to L3 X0909) Possible   
2 Packet Condensers (L3 X0909 to ESIN) Possible   
1 Entrance floor no   
B1 CRYCELT Encryption Computers Probably not   
B2 CRYCELT Decryption Computers Probably not   
B3 Cable connection to ESIN uplink dish no   
Vault Power Plant 

Garner took a look at the paper, grimaced, and crumpled it up. 

/This building is too big. This network is too complex. Morovsky was too good./ 

/I'm dead./ 

/Ballard's dead./ 

/And Morovsky's probably dead too./ 

"Drachenblut," she mumbled to herself. "Dragon's Blood. Shit." 

As if on cue, the phone rang.   



	3. Drachenblut: Phase 03

Gundam Wing is the property of Sotsu Agency, Bandai, and Sunrise. No infringement is intended. Please contact me at fractalforge@hotmail.com if you'd like to give me comments, and visit http://www.geocities.com/fractalforge/index.html for the latest version of all my work. All feedback is appreciated. Beyond this point, all warnings for spoilers apply.   


DRACHENBLUT 

Chapter Three 

///////////////////////////////   
  


/No feelings./ 

The few centimeters of snow beneath his black shoes snapped and squalled as a small blond teenager, eyes dry and stinging, strolled slowly through the cathedral's graveyard. The winter afternoon was bright and windless, but still a deep chill permeated every object: the brown twigs of the naked trees, the granite slabs encrusted with moss and time, the monotonous gray crosses rising above everything. The sun was invisible, and the expansive, tree-walled yard was vacant save a few absorbed, lingering mourners. 

/No feelings. Don't feel./ 

The blond boy was clad in funeral attire: a nondescript black suit, black tie, and a moderately handsome knee-length coat. His pale, lowered face expressed grief, dutiful mourning, and a slight impression of barely realized terror. It was a well chosen mask, of course, created for the benefit of spectators and passers-by and honed by hours of use. An unknowing mourner -- one who, perhaps, saw the boy slinking toward the grave after the funeral services were long complete, as he usually did -- wouldn't regard it as anything special. The more questioning ones might glimpse something deeper and look him over for a moment before leaving him in his misery. 

Quatre planted his feet squarely in front of a gravestone, took a deep breath, and looked up. KLAUS WEIBER, AC 176 - AC 196. 

/No feelings./ 

He had killed him, of course. Quickly and painlessly. It had been an archetypal assault mission: attack and disable an airbase, steal a cargo plane, and make for better climes. After Quatre's usual "Drop your weapons and surrender or be destroyed!" warning, Weiber's Leo had been the first to start firing. The MM-110 rifles that Leos carried were not a substantial threat to Quatre -- and he had known it. But Weiber's suit had been in his way. Sandrock' s shorters had sliced the body of his mobile suit into two neat pieces, the edges and interior parts heat-polished and steaming. 

/No feelings./ 

Quatre's gaze rolled over the gravestone, the small plot of white before it, the bunches of red roses perched upon it, and the small OZ flag planted in the cold snow next to them. 

/...Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.../ 

/No. No feelings. Stop that. Stop that./ 

Electricity and cold rolled down his spine, and his shoulders shook as though bearing some intolerable burden or weight. No. 

/DEAD./ 

In a vain effort to stop himself, he tried to shut his eyes tight enough that the tears couldn't escape. Impossible: his dull, foggy eyes filled with salt water. After a few more swimming, waterlogged glances to see if anyone was around, Quatre's legs collapsed. The snow's hard surface crunched lightly beneath his black, fisted gloves and the soft wool fringes of his coat. The boy hatefully clawed at his face, the soft leather slashing the clinging moisture from his lashes. Unmasked shame and sorrow were now visible blooming on his pale face. His body twisted once in a sort of single scared convulsion, his face moving up and his arms moving in to wrap his hollow chest. 

Intrigued by the sensation, he shook again, exhaling frost and trying not to let the air escaping his lungs become a sob. Once more he treated his body to the aborted half-whimper, then simply knelt and stared at the fine crystals of the snow and the headstone beyond. 

"Stop crying, fool," muttered a uniquely nasal voice from directly behind him. 

Without turning, Quatre took a deep noisy breath and muttered, "I wasn't crying." 

No pause punctuated the interval to the voice's next words. "Fine. Then stop doing that. ...Whatever you wish to call it." 

The blond boy's expression went blank and pitiful. "What am I doing?" 

"You are supposed to be paying respect to that dead man. But you aren't." 

Quatre watched the motionless grave. "No one is watching except you. You told me earlier that you didn't care... don't care about how anyone feels." 

The voice snorted. "I don't care how you feel. Your personal feelings are your own business. I believe in respect to the dead, though." 

"Toward him?" 

"Who else?" 

Quatre's hands idly crunched and ground at the surface of the snow. "Do you think he's watching me?" 

"That does not matter. He does not have to be watching your insult to make it real." 

Quatre frowned and stood and turned around, his eyes clear by now. The wearily arrogant face of Chang Wufei stared at him. The Chinese boy was wearing a remarkably unostentatious black suit and his hair was out of its usual ponytail. 

"That is true." 

"You do this often." 

Quatre's mouth was even. "It's no secret." 

They turned to walk down the snowy pathway, meandering in a nameless direction into the main section of the graveyard. 

As if apologizing, Wufei lowered his voice. "It's no secret that you go off alone sometimes. But you never told us what you did. It was necessary for me to find out where you go." 

"I always tell Trowa." 

"That is good, but that alone is not acceptable. It was you that decided to make us three into a unit. If you wish us to continue to function as a unit..." Wufei frowned to choose a word. "We cannot.... have secrets from each other." 

"'Keep secrets'." 

Wufei nodded out of weary, obligatory gratitude. "Your friend is too rude to correct me." 

Quatre remained silent. 

Wufei's face did not change in expression as he glared and softly said,"...Though, frankly, he is not as rude as your display back there was." 

The blond pilot bowed his head. "I always try to do the right thing. This was a test for me. I failed." 

"So." Wufei's slim and callused fingers massaged the bridge of his nose. "...You should not feel sorry for yourself. You should feel sorry for him. Weiber." 

But Quatre only looked into the distance and muttered, "I wonder if that's true." 

"I know it is. I have done this before. There are few experiences as..." Wufei stopped for a moment and considered his words. "...as necessary as this one." 

The blond boy looked at the landscape before them: fields and fields of snow, dotted with orderly ranks of stones and filled occasionally with dense patches of trees. The wind began to sing against his ears and he pulled the collar of his coat higher. "It seems unlike you to do this." 

Wufei's statement was quiet. "On the contrary. It would be weak /not/ to be able to face the grave of an opponent." 

Quatre bowed his head and turned away, regarding the cold muddy bark of an unremarkable tree. "...I guess I'm much weaker than you." 

Wufei, embarassed slightly, did not respond to that statement. "I, too, used to think that I was the only one that did this. It is not rational to be confused, but at least it is normal." 

"What about the others?" 

The Chinese pilot looked at everything and saw nothing. "Of course your friend does it when he is alone. Of the other two, I know that Maxwell does it very often. I do not know about Yuy, but I strongly suspect--" 

"Trowa does this, too?" 

This interested Wufei, though he tried not to show it. Beneath his lashes, Quatre could see the masked voyeurism of the other boy's interest as he made an effort to be nonchalant. "...Hadn't he told you?" 

"Did you tell Trowa the same thing you just told me... that we couldn't have secrets?" 

Wufei looked at the Arab pilot mildly. "Of course." 

Quatre frowned and looked into the bushy green trees. "I wonder why he didn't tell me he did this..." 

A stray branch, blown in from somewhere in a storm, snapped under Wufei's feet. "I did not tell you because I thought you already knew. Perhaps he thought so also." 

"How would I have known?" 

Wufei's eyes rolled away from Quatre, and he tried to adjust his voice to exclude all shades of unintended meaning. "...You seem to know a lot about him. Even without him telling you." 

Quatre chuckled half-heartedly. For a moment Wufei thought he was being mocked, then realized that the laughter contained no mirth. "I can't even imagine Trowa torturing himself like this." 

This intrigued the Chinese boy. "Do you think of this as a punishment, Winner?" 

"I do it because I feel I have to. I don't know if that's a punishment or not." 

The paved and shoveled path took them into a district of six tall trees. No snow was on the ground under them; it had all been sheltered by pine needles. The hard snow did not drift either: the huge cones of needles and pitch sheltered wide, shallow nests of orange leaves and dirt. 

After a pause, the Chinese boy intoned, "You feel obligated to do it. That, at least, is virtuous." 

There was another pause. 

Quatre kicked a branch aimlessly. "I realize that I was disrespectful to that man's... I don't know... immortal soul. If you want to call it that." 

Stern as ever, Wufei murmured, "If you were aware of it, then you should go back and apologize." 

The blond boy looked at the pavement and how the cubes of salt melted the ice in inconstant patches. "You don't understand, Wufei. I don't come here to pay respect to the dead. At least, I shouldn't." 

The chill wind, slicing between the branches of the evergreens, silently battered their bodies as they continued their procession through the winter morning. Stray cakes of snow shifted and fell from the branches, shattering softly on the hard coating of the ground. Wufei kept his eyes on his shoes and the ice-lines on the pavement path. "What is your purpose coming here, if not that?" 

Quatre's eyes went blank. "I don't know. I keep telling myself that I shouldn't need to apologize to him, that I was only doing my duty. But I'm having trouble actually believing that..." 

The pair entered a long, meandering side alleyway, an alcove lane of bushes with periodic gapping doorways leading to individual, private clearings. The pavement changed from black asphalt to worn brick held together with sandy beige cement. Here, in this more secluded sector, the wind's noise was almost imperceptible. The alley was several hundred meters long, and appeared to be totally deserted. 

Wufei frowned deeply, sifting over the implications of the blond's chilly, willful statement. "You are mistaken. The apology and the sorrow are both necessary. You NEED to be sorry. You NEED to apologize. Otherwise you are not a warrior... you are just a killer." 

Quatre watched his warm breath form into clouds of almost opaque fog. He was dimly aware of his voice calmly saying, as detached as a policy debate, "You said you didn't care about what I or anyone else felt." 

Wufei rolled his eyes at the technicality. "I don't... I don't care how you feel, I care THAT you CAN feel. I have to care about that because it is my business as well as yours. We are all dangerous people, and compassion is the one thing we cannot afford to lose. Because...compassion is really all we have." 

Quatre's eyes moved slowly under soft wet veils as he played devil's advocate. "Why does that matter?" 

The Chinese pilot paused angrily for a moment and his teeth showed when he began to talk. "That which you aim to achieve is the ZERO system. Only someone in perfect control can realize that, and you... as you just demonstrated... are very far from that. That is what caused you..." his voice trailed off, reluctant to anunciate the words. 

Quatre's eyes flickered. "I /know/ what I did in space." 

Wufei glared. "If you make that mistake again, you will betray everything you fight for. You will cease to be a warrior." 

Quatre looked away. "I need to be able to accomplish my mission without regret. And without ZERO. I must be in complete control. That is more important than my honor or anything else..." His eyes shone with heat for a few moments. "Because my job is killing. Repeatedly. Without regret or mercy." 

Wufei fumed silently, forming his counterattack, his returning argument. 

The empty graveyard alleyway rang with the boy's alto voice, corners echoing. He spoke the words hatefully, like bitter poison. "I need to be able to do my job perfectly." 

Wufei's dark eyes shone with anger and his voice exploded, not caring about any bystanders or eavesdroppers. "You are a fool! You were able to perform your job well enough before, and there is no reason you cannot now. This phase is nothing but romantic posturing and vanity. Perhaps you're insecure simply because you saw something... disturbing. Or heard someone say something that shook you. You have lost your balance. You've lost a bit of your control. But nothing has changed, Winner. Absolutely nothing." 

Quatre's eyes became invisible and his voice modulated between tones of high and low. "How do you do it? You can kill so easily..." 

Wufei's intense eyes became slits and there was a long pause. Then, slowly and gutterally, the boy spit out the words inside his mouth. "You are wrong, Winner. You are very wrong." 

His mouth twisted into a stubborn and painful scowl. "I hate this war much more than you can know." 

The Arabian pilot sniffled once, looking forlorn and very cold. He was out of his element in all respects: in a cold place, a graveyard, surrounded by darkness and death. Slowly, his moist eyelids closed together and gripped themselves against each other. 

"...I'm sorry. All I can ever think of at times like these is how bad I feel, and..." 

Wufei's mouth stretched out and he looked away and leveled his eyes knowingly. 

"Have you ever thought about killing yourself?" 

Quatre tried to form an ironic expression, but it didn't happen. In a soft and disturbingly emotionless voice, he murmured, "You seem to know how my mind works. You know what I did in space. You know exactly what happened..." 

Wufei didn't actually know the specifics, but the implication was there and the peripheral details were pathetically easy to imagine. He could picture Quatre, after the massacre he had caused in space, lying alone on the OZ carrier or perhaps on the re-entry shuttle to earth... gradually confronting his actions... gradually realizing the consequences of what he had done... the thought sent echoes of electricity down Wufei's spine. 

/Perhaps I underestimated his strength. He remains alive today... whatever happened, he somehow convinced himself that it was worth it to go on... at least, for a little while.../ 

Quatre looked at the random cracks in the bricks below him and the elegant wedges of his shoes. "I decided that killing myself would be just as futile as going on without trying to atone for my deeds. So I kept on fighting. I decided to try as hard as I could to survive and make up for what I had done." 

/Alcoholics and drug addicts, in rehabilitation, are taught a concept to help them deal with the concept of an eternity without their vice./ 

/"When the idea of a lifetime ahead without heroin, whiskey, cocaine, whatever... is too frightening, simply make it your goal to live without it for another week, another day, another hour, even another minute. And when you have completed that period, simply try and live until the next period. Repeat this until it is no longer necessary."/ 

/"One day at a time."/ 

/The metaphor was mixed and the connotations were wrong, but nevertheless, I decided that it was a good system./ 

Quatre's eyes brightened slightly. "I decided to try and live..." 

Wufei's face pulled into a shape that characterized cautious relief. "Good. You are faced with the same question you were faced with then... except now it is emotional suicide, rather than physical." 

Quatre turned his head stubbornly away. 

"I pray you make the same decision you did then, Winner." 

/Say something, anything./ "...I am obliged to you for your advice," Quatre managed to say before the lump in his throat prevented all further speech. 

/But this is completely different.../ 

/It hurts so much.../ 

/My heart... my soul.../ 

Wufei frowned as his cellular phone softly rang. "Strange, no one is supposed to know this numb-- oh. Of course." 

Quatre raised his head questioningly, hoping that Wufei would ignore the tears on his cheeks. His question was answered when his own phone rang in his pocket. He lugged out the slim piece of plastic and metal and read the message on the screen. 

Code 1212. Highest possible priority. 

/No./ 

/Not now./ 

/Not when I'm in this state. Not when I've just done this.../ 

Wufei glanced at the LCD screen and shrugged and placed it carefully into his pocket again, his expression not changing. 

Quatre thought he would have to say something about there being a joint mission -- a relatively rare event -- and wasn't really sure he could do it. Fortunately, Wufei was already sprinting down the brick pathway toward the edge of the graveyard's alley and the fence of trees beyond. 

At a jogger's pace, fearing a reprimand, the blond boy half-heartedly followed the quick footsteps to the edge of the forest and his Gundam. 

/I can't make it.../ 

/I can't do it.../ 

/No feelings.../ 

And then it hit him. 

It was as though his lungs had suddenly drained or his heart had started beating twice as fast. Without knowing the reason why, the boy's pace quickened and quickened until he was going nearly the speed of Wufei. 

As the rapid wind whipped his hair and his coat flowed behind him, Quatre Raberba Winner coughed and, despite himself, smiled. His tears were already dry and gone. 

/"One day at a time."/ 


	4. Drachenblut: Phase 04

Gundam Wing is the property of Sotsu Agency, Bandai, and Sunrise. No infringement is intended. Please contact me at fractalforge@hotmail.com if you'd like to give me comments, and visit http://www.geocities.com/fractalforge/index.html for the latest version of all my work. All feedback is appreciated.   


DRACHENBLUT 

Chapter Four 

///////////////////////////////   


Several hundred meters above dark, wave-lapped boulders, Heero Yuy squinted into the green matrix of his night vision goggles and locked his chalk-white, friction-gloved fingers into another crack in the cliff face. As he gradually moved upwards, his feet found handy spikes and ledges for support seemingly without effort or will. 

The large wall of rock itself -- just the crags and cracks -- was easy to climb, hard and very strong. That fact made the insertion method possible: anything less secure would have been unacceptable. 

It was currently pitch black, only eleven degrees celsius, and 2:32 AM, and the wind blowing in from the sea was cold and disorienting. That fact made the mission much more dangerous: Heero's mind had calculated at least seven different ways to die when he had done the planning phase. 

But ten minutes' climb above his current position, there was a computer that needed to be broken into and an OZ General that needed to die. That fact made the mission necessary. 

Dr. J had broken his six-month-long silence to somehow smuggle out a message to him. It had arrived in the computer bank of Wing Gundam after being sent through 52 different proxy servers all over the Earth-Colony net. 

Though Duo and Wufei had freed the doctors from the Lunar Base after their escape, the missions that Dr. J and Professor H had transmitted to he and Duo had been few and relatively insignificant. It had been obvious to Heero that the Doctors were taking much greater information security precautions now that they were really "at war"... or at least /their/ doctors were. Heero had no way of really knowing, after all. 

He'd had no contact with Quatre, Wufei, or Trowa after the fiasco in space, except for one time... and that had really been all coincidence. Heero had certainly had no opportunity to talk with them about their missions or briefing status; being more concerned at the time with Quatre's mental condition... 

But that was another matter altogether -- an emotional one, and Heero had never been any good with the emotions of other people. The boy willed it out of his mind and continued climbing. 

The mission at hand-- put better, this small facet of THE mission -- was to steal some experimental data and kill General Anders Eriksen, a high-ranking research and development officer and former aristocrat. Its importance was not outwardly apparent to Heero... However, it was obvious that what he was /not/ being told was too sensitive to even attempt to transmit. 

Code 1212. That was the mission's priority heading... absolute importance, absolute necessity. The only other mission with a 1212 heading had been Dekim Barton's original Operation Meteor plans... and those had never actually gone into effect. 

Something very, very important was in the computer; and someone had to die for some very, very good reason. This was /vital/: the circumstances surrounding his orders demonstrated this. The arcane and barely remembered ways in which the message had been encrypted, the urgent and forceful language, the absence of any provided contingency plan or escape route. 

The boy also had a substantial suspicion that this wasn't the only phase of this mission, either... 

Heero's night-vision goggles refocused, twisting the view of rock and cliff into harsh shades of yellow and green. He pulled upwards, white clawlike hands again finding a handhold and gripping it. His toes, covered by thin-soled, tight climbing shoes, felt a ledge to press against. He shifted his weight against the crumb of stone and moved his other foot to find a higher outcropping. 

The rythym of the climb was never boring: there was still much novelty left in climbing real rock, not metal. His training on various colonies and ships, had tried to simulate it in various ways -- walls with grips in them, centrifuges with outcroppings, even scaling a the exterior wall of a colony -- but had never really succeeded. He had only just started climbing the cliff to Eriksen's mansion when he realized that the methods he had been taught in space were almost completely useless. 

Heero's left arm moved upwards, groped in the whiteness of his vision for a handhold, found none, and returned to its old perch. 

Normally Heero's mind was able to take any action and learn it so precisely that it became a mechanical routine -- like running or moving -- that no longer required conscious thought. However, the action of climbing cliffs still required many decisions and reflexive choices. More practice was obviously necessary. 

Heero decided that he'd ask to go rock climbing the next time Duo asked to do something recreational. 

After moving his right arm up to a large outcropping and risking a one-handed pullup through the air, Heero found himself on a curious, rounded ledge about as big as a dinner plate. He crouched there to rest for a moment, goggles scanning the skies and measuring the exact distance to the top of the cliff. The climb would take sixteen or seventeen minutes, depending on the terrain and his handling of the one tough-looking spot he could see above him. 

As Heero moved his fingertips to the next handhold, he mentally compared his actual route to his planned route. The correlation was quite good on the whole -- the images he had snapped the previous day from across the bay hadn't been perfect for planning a climb, and at some sections had turned out to reveal nothing about the landscape. His plan of the optimum route had proven fruitful on the whole, but in some places he was aware that he had made mistakes. 

The climb continued. Swing the left leg up to hook onto a ledge. Hang on with the right arm while brushing the rough rock for another ledge with the left hand. Push up vertically, then quickly grip onto the next bit of stone. 

At the next ledge, he reached down and applied more chalk to his hands. All his gear -- including guns, ammunition, three grenades, a radio, several data disks, cables, and of course a hookshot -- was firmly strapped to his vest and his waist. A change of clothes and different shoes, as well as various specialized equipment, were firmly secured inside a small backpack. Seeing that all was in order, Heero cast a quick glance towards the water below him to measure his height, then began to move upwards again. 

The goggles showed the moving rock face as a massive yellow polygonal blob, with the contours and bumps traced and filtered in as yellow arcs. Climbing using goggles wasn't much harder than climbing in the daytime: the only differences were that your field of vision was a little less and your depth perception was inaccurate over long distances. Some people would have found it dangerously disorienting, but it seemed to have little effect on Heero's overall perception of the world. 

After climbing for several minutes, Heero reached another stopping point and pressed a few buttons on the rectangular pad strapped to his left wrist. The tiny screen on Wing Gundam's remote control unit immediately lit up, awaiting his command. The mecha was lying belly-up seventeen meters underwater, computers charged and ready to ignite the thrusters. If he pressed the "start" button, the preprogrammed sequence would begin... but it was yet too early for that. 

As he moved onwards and upwards, Heero mentally calculated the exact time it would take Wing Gundam to blast out of the water and clear the distance between sea level and the top of the cliff: excellent, less than four seconds. With no pilot in the mech, all accelleration issues could be ignored. 

Almost there now. Consciously trying to eliminate the white noise of peripheral thoughts from his brain, Heero thrust his right fingers into a crack in the rock. His legs, slender cylindrical coils of muscle and tendon, quivered above the tacky bent soles of his shoes as he pushed upwards to the next ledge. 

He was going to make it. The most dangerous part of the climb had been the beginning, climbing to the first ledge with seventy pounds of polythermal scuba equipment on his back. The edges of the water-washed rock had been slippery and his grip had been unsure. He hadn't been able to rely on his earlier reconaissance, either, as the tide was lower now and an unseen part of the cliff face had been revealed. 

And, of course, the water had been very, very cold. His gear had barely protected him from its chill; and on the lower parts of the cliff face, the evaporating water had made his body ache with numbness and pain. 

But now that had all passed. His black thermal wetsuit was keeping him reasonably comfortable, or at least as comfortable as one could be climbing up a cliff. His goggles illuminated the environment before him. His gear was all ready. His heart was beating at a steady pace. And now he was facing the last leg of the climb: the final few meters of arched rock. 

Two minutes later, he was crouching on the dewy, wind-raked grass, wary of the cliff behind him. 

Like a paranoid cat, Heero quickly darted into the latticed darkness behind a hexagonal wooden gazebo and began to study the mansion for his approach. Though it was still very early in the morning, the ambient light from the mansion's lower floors illuminated the gardens and fields with an eerie cold white glow. Bathed in yellow gold and digital green, the square windows of the mansion provided all the light he needed to conduct a detailed check on all the terrain. 

The large, squat outline of the great house was warm before the distant sky. Lying before it for a hundred meters, deep in winter sleep, were patches of hard flower gardens, paths, a tennis court, and a large pool. Even in winter it was evident that Eriksen lived in utter luxury, and Heero was almost moved to admire the symmetric layout of what was the mansion's "back yard". It was probably an ancestral home, but there had been no time to check. 

The first priority was to change out of the wetsuit. With swift and efficient movements, Heero unclipped his pack, vest, and belt and set them on the ground. He proceeded to unzip the thermal, watertight garment and peel it off of his cold skin, tossing it off the cliff edge. With it went the climbing shoes and the container of chalk. Shivering slightly due to the wind-chilled sweat on his bare body, and lacking even spandex to ward away the cold, the boy quickly reached into his pack and donned a tight black pair of pants, a short-sleeved shirt adorned with various pockets and straps, and a pair of combat boots. He proceeded to strap on his belt, combat vest, and pack again. 

The next order of business was to check all the gear. Heero removed his climbing friction-gloves and replaced them with black synthetic electrical gloves: in his experience, there was no better type for on-site hacking missions. He attached a holster to his belt and checked his primary gun; an ADA-313 assault pistol with a laser sight. The smell of gunpowder and cordite was familiar as he dextrously loaded a clip into the handle of the firearm. 

The boy cautiously turned a control switch on his goggles, which immediately shifted into infared mode. He scanned the grounds of the mansion for lasers and security cameras; none. Simply a quiet warm glow given off by the house that grew lighter around the windows and doors. A small pink trail of vapor rose above the house's chimney: there had probably been a fire -- an old-fashioned wooden fire -- there that evening. 

Everything was quiet... very quiet. No laser security, no guards, no cameras. Probably no infared detection units too, as they tended to give off more radiation than Heero saw. Total and utter peace. 

There was probably some sort of alarm system inside the house, though... probably set to lock and unlock doors via codes or keys -- or go off when windows are broken. Hacking it would be risky, rewiring it would take time; and it might also be shielded from EM effects. Given the importance of data stored on Eriksen's computer, it was reasonable for Heero to assume that the entire house might be protected. 

The nearest police station to the house was nearly ten kilometers away, the nearest OZ barracks was twenty. If Heero set off the security alarm while breaking in, it would take at least seven minutes for any substantial help to arrive. In all probability, the mission would be complete by that time... 

Heero Yuy's methodical and orderly mind calmly evaluated all possibilities for neutralizing or avoiding the security system. Having decided on a course of action, he proceeded to check his gear one final time; then squatted down into a coiled position, like a sprinter before a race. 

/Infiltration phase: complete./ 

/Assault phase: starting now./ 

The moon broke through the clouds as Heero Yuy sprinted, low and silent, across the grounds of the mansion; hookshot in hand; goggles displaying urgent red data; and heartrate remaining, as always, as regular as a ticking clock.   


///////////////////////////////   


Garner eyed the plastic white phone reciever for a moment as her heartrate exploded. 

/Who now? OPS control, with another request for information? Division command? Another computer center?/ 

/...The Inquisitor?/ 

Her throat was dry and she stuttered, as usual, when she was nervous. She could see Ballard turn his head, interested. /Damn, he heard me. My 'too cool' persona was working so well.../ "Sys- Systems Administrator Marie Garner speaking." 

The voice on the other end of the line was obviously female, unfamiliar but very cold, a dispassionate alto with a slightly nasal way of pronouncing Rs. "Administrator, please hold for Vice Admiral Negon." 

She managed to spit out, "Acknowledged." 

Her eyes shot wide open. /Why so soon...?!/ 

Then it hit her: /Oh, no. The mole cracked. He told Negon everything -- everything about his methods, about what he stole -- probably everything about Drachenblut, too./ 

/Of course he will. Negon's reputation is well known, and if Morovsky places any value on dying quickly and while still in one piece, he'll spill everything he knows. And I'm SURE he knows about that file. It was the only one in his disk partition that was unencrypted. He read it; the access record says so.../ 

/Strange thing is, I don't think he had decrypted any OTHER files -- Drachenblut must've been an exception. All the other files in his sector are still encrypted, untouched... in all probability, Morovsky was passing the encrypted files on to someone else who would then decode them... and it seems as though this was the only stolen file he'd ever actually read./ 

/So what made Drachenblut different? What made it special?/ 

/Besides, of course, the content inside the file, which he couldn't have known about in the first place without decrypting.../ 

"Who is it, ma'am?" Ballard's dark blond hair shielded his glasses as he turned his head. 

She shook her head despairingly, all pretense of toughness gone. "Somebody I didn't want to talk to. You just keep working." 

Contrary to Garner's expectations. Ballard didn't turn white or cringe. Instead, his face became more stoic and his eyes became more intense. 

"I see." 

/That's strange... I was expecting him to freak out... either my opinion of him has been wrong all along, or he simply has more balls than I thought he did. I always thought he was nothing more than a clueless, geeky technician... but now it's as though he's a different person or something! Maybe this is just a panic reflex.../ 

Another chiding voice: /Maybe, maybe. Maybe what? Maybe your subordinate is more ballsy than you thought he was. But what matters right now is *what* you're going to tell Negon to prevent him from killing your ass and Ballard's recently ballsy ass too!/ 

Over the phone, Garner could vaguely percieve a reciever being handed to someone and some background noise. Negon obviously had his calls screened, but in all probability she'd be speaking to him in literally seconds... 

/Morovsky knew somehow that the Drachenblut file was hot, and decrypted it. Then he read it and figured out why it was hot. Now Negon knows all of that and is gonna wanna know WHY I called a 1077 Security Breach, the highest disaster code I have permission to report./ 

/He probably has a really good idea already, though. He thinks I saw Drachenblut, freaked out, and called a 1077 to stall for more time./ 

/And if that's what he thinks, he's absolutely right. But I wasn't supposed to SEE Drachenblut! That file was Black Level, exclusively available to heavy hitters like Khushrenada and Tsubarov. And having read a little -- and God, I wish I hadn't -- I can see exactly why./ 

/Two big questions... The first, how did Morovsky know to decrypt that particular file? And of course the second, what the hell is my excuse for seeing something I wasn't supposed to?/ 

"Systems Administrator Garner?" 

The voice was a low and gravelly rumble, carrying a vague impression of extreme power and extreme cruelty. 

"Y.. yes, sir?" 

"You are in supervisory control of the twenty-eighth computer center." A statement, not a question. 

"Sir." 

"And you are currently investigating the security breaches caused by the mole Aleksandr Morovsky... as per our last interdepartmental operations request." 

/That's just bureaucratese for 'you doin' what we told you to do?' I bet I would really hate this guy if I met him in person.../ "We are currently carrying out that directive, s... sir." Her voice raised on the last syllable. 

/Shit. He heard that stutter. He heard that and he knows something./ 

/He knows I'm running scared./ 

/Don't ask it./ 

/Don't ask it./ 

Negon's baritone voice was unwavering as he intoned, "Operations control has informed me that you've called in a Code 1077 Security breach. Why did you do so?" 

/He asked it./ 

/I'M DEAD./ 

/BALLARD'S DEAD./ 

/WE'RE ALL DEAD./ 

/He knows. He has to know. He wouldn't normally contact us until after the interrogation, and I know he can't be done with Morovsky by now./ 

/He's holding all the cards. Everything. He knows everything I know and more -- and worse, he has sufficient experience with computers to be able to shrug off any bullshit I could try to string together./ 

"That is... ah..." 

/I don't know what to say./ 

Silence. Nothing but expectant silence over the reciever. She breathed once and listened to her pounding heart. 

/I don't know what to do./ 

And then it happened. 

It took less than a second. There were sprinting footsteps behind her and there was something cold and hard against the back of her head and a loud, resounding CLICK. Her computer screen ran black, then flashed with a few centered lines of white text. Behind her, she could see Ballard reflected in her screen, he face now a total mask of urgency and violence. 

As her subordinate pressed the cold gun into her black hair, he whispered in an urgent, threatening, totally uncharacteristic tone, "Say your lines." 

The text on the screen flashed once at her. 

Her mouth dropped open. 

/What?!/ 

The thin man smiled grimly through his glasses, and nervously raked a hand through his blond hair. 

"...Or I'll kill you, Administrator." 


	5. Drachenblut: Phase 05

Gundam Wing is the property of Sotsu Agency, Bandai, and Sunrise. No infringement is intended. Please contact me at fractalforge@hotmail.com if you'd like to give me comments, and visit http://www.geocities.com/fractalforge/index.html for the latest version of all my work. All feedback is appreciated.   


DRACHENBLUT 

Chapter Five 

///////////////////////////////   


OZ Systems Administrator Marie Garner's brain shook with confusion and shock. 

/My subordinate... my mild-mannered, clueless, friendly subordinate... is pointing a gun at my head. He's telling me to "read my lines", the lines on the computer screen. I have no idea what he's doing./ 

/I'm talking to Vice Admiral Sethir Negon, otherwise known as the Grand Inquisitor, intelligence expert and sadist./ 

/I'm trying to explain why I called a 1077 Security Breach over a top-secret file I'm not supposed to have seen./ 

/A top-secret file called "Drachenblut"./ 

Ballard's deadly calm whisper, again: "Say your lines or I'll kill you." 

Garner's eyes narrowed as she did all she could do. 

She said her lines. 

"Oh, I'm sorry, sir. My... my subordinate just locked down a new file sector." 

"...You didn't answer my question, Administrator." 

/He's mad. I don't think he likes anything but swift obedience.../ 

/Hopefully, whoever's writing these lines won't piss him off.../ 

The message on the screen was replaced by a slightly longer one. Garner raked her eyes over the text and tried desperately to adopt a normal tone of voice. The lines looked vaguely plausible, to her surprise. 

"I ... I called a 1077 breach because of the prefix code on one of Morovsky's files, sir. The only unencrypted file in his disk partition was named 'drachenblutRS3Ksys.io'. I was going to open it after I saw that he'd recently accessed the file, but I decided to check the access prefix on it to see if I had the priveleges to read it... or see if I needed to call in a higher level team." 

The text ended there. Garner shrugged her shoulders helplessly and tried to turn around, but Ballard only pushed the gun into her neck harder. In a second, a new white message appeared on the monitor. 

"And...?" Negon's still irritated voice. 

"When I *looked* at the prefix, sir," read Garner, managing to add a touch of excited melodrama, "I noticed that it had been altered... hacked... from access level 121 to access level 04, normal document status. At that point I decided that anything with the prefix 121 must have been extremely secret, so I called a high-level contamination warning. If I'm not mistaken, access level 121 is reserved for a very, very small number of people..." 

Again the text ended, and Garner simply waited passively for the next message. Behind her, Ballard relaxed noticeably. 

/The tragic thing is, this would actually be a good excuse it it were true. I didn't have time to check, but it seems plausible.../ 

Another, more rational voice chimed in: /Still, what is he DOING?! It's as though he has a totally new personality. And how did he get that gun against my head without me noticing? And what on earth is he trying to accomplish?/ 

/Who the hell is Ballard really working for?/ 

/Also, who's feeding me these lines? Are they predicting what Negon's saying, or being dynamically generated? Is it just a set script...? They're coming way too fast for anyone to be typing in.../ 

Negon's dangerous growling voice again, this time somehow less threatening. "And why did you not call in an OPS team at that point?" 

After a pause of about half a second, a new line appeared. Garner read it. 

"...Because I wanted to see the extent of the compromise before calling anyone else in, sir. Even a team from your department wouldn't have been cleared to see documents like that, and I wanted to make sure there weren't any others like it. Frankly, OPS department members aren't trained to use our system here, and having extra people here while we weren't totally focused would increase the possibility of exposure of secret information." 

This time there was a long pause on Negon's end, complete with indecipherable noise in the background; as though two people were talking. Then his voice returned. 

"...Are you telling me that my staff is incapable of using your system, Administrator?" 

Garner's heartrate spiked as a new line appeared. 

"..Far from it, sir. We simply wanted to finish our current procedures before summoning OPS. Right now, my subordinate and I are decrypting the files and locating the true prefix codes." 

Negon seemed satisfied and made an mm noise. "Just a few more questions..." there was a noise over the phone of paper ruffling. "Do April showers bring May flowers?" 

/Huh?!/ 

Behind her, Ballard froze, as though seeing incredible significance in that line. Quietly, he whispered, "Oh, no..." 

/What does he know that I don't?/ 

/That question makes no sense... is it a Densgrave AI Detection method...?/ 

After about a second, another line appeared on the black monitor. 

"I... I beg your pardon, sir?" 

"I said, do April showers bring May flowers?" 

This time, the monitor's message changed quickly. "Isn't that... an old Earth saying?" (The ellipsis was written into the text on the screen.) 

Negon moved smoothly on to his next question without mentioning the significance of his last comment. "Are you telling me that my staff is incapable of using your system, Administrator?" 

/I've already answered that question! Why is he repeating questions all of a sudden?/ 

This time it took a full two seconds for Garner's screen to register a new message. She spoke her line with feeling. "I believe I already said that we simply wanted to finish our procedures. Is there something wrong, sir?" 

Negon chuckled over the line, his voice now gluttonous and deadly. "Only that you're reading lines off a computer screen and your subordinate is holding a gun to your head, Administrator. I'm sure I'll enjoy interrogating both of you." 

/What?!/ 

The explosion of the handgun was deafening as Ballard turned silently and furiously and shot the phone's base, then whirled and fired another slug into the lens of a camera across the room. As Garner leaned forward hurriedly in her chair, dropping the reciever, panicking, her heart racing; and covered her ears; the tech turned again and fired once more. The bullet shattered the lens of another security camera on the opposite wall. Ballard ejected the cartridge from the pistol and slammed in a fresh one. 

Three shell casings rolled on the ground and the smell of smoke was heavy in the air. 

/First I find out that he's a whole lot more than just a clueless tech, and then I find out that he's able to shoot out a target the size of a marble from across the room?! What on earth is going on!/ 

Ballard sighed. "I'm afraid I owe you a bit of an apology, Administrator." 

/A BIT of an apology?!/ 

The OZ rank advancement system had required Garner to spend two years in training with the regular OZ corps before becoming a technical director. Thus, Garner had experienced the same level of physical and combat training that any OZ soldier had. She knew how to fight, hand-to-hand, with blades, even with advanced weapons. She knew how to handle a gun. 

She also knew that, as a member of OZ occupying the colonies, she was required by organization law to carry a gun at all times. 

And Ballard's comment pushed her over the line. 

Swifter than her subordinate could move, she sprung from her chair, drew her own pistol out of her side holster and levelled it at his head. 

"Ballard, you owe me a hell of a lot more than 'a bit of an apology'! You just pointed a gun at me! You owe me a HUGE apology! You also owe me some information... namely, who you really are, who you're really working for, and how you did what you just did!" 

The tech kept a calm, steady expression and retained his grip on his pistol. 

"Goddammit, Ballard, I'm your commanding officer! Now *drop that gun* or I swear I'll shoot your traitorous ass!" 

The laser sight on her pistol went on when she snapped the safety off, and it cast a small red dot on the tech's sweaty forehead. The tech only sighed and threw his glasses --obviously false -- into a corner. He shook the medium-length blond hair out of his eyes and lowered his weapon, frustrated. 

Garner moved into a more defensive position, but Ballard only tucked his gun into his belt and started talking. His voice was different from its normal tone, but not the violent and menacing rumble it had been before. Instead it was a slightly less intense growl. 

"Fair enough. But first let's get some things cleared up." 

She nodded, gesturing for him to continue. 

"Okay... we're both in exactly the *same boat* here. Negon obviously knows exactly what I just did... and soon, the OPS team is going to arrive and check these computers and figure out what YOU did. I'm a mole and I've compromised security. You saw that super-secret Drachenblut document. We're both facing serious time in a military prison, probably worse considering the fact that the Inquisitor's involved." 

Garner nodded, but she did not put down the gun. "Agreed." 

"Good. Next: Since we're both wanted by the military police, it makes no sense for us to consider ourselves OZ personnel anymore. Therefore, I am no longer your subordinate... and you're no longer my commander. I can save both of us right now, but I'm only going to do it if we eliminate this chain-of-command bullshit. We're the same status now, okay?!" 

/Damn, nothing to lord over him now... I suppose it can't be helped, though./ 

Garner's eyes narrowed. "Agreed." She lowered her weapon. 

"Then I apologize for threatening to kill you." 

Garner mock-bowed. "I apologize for pulling rank on you and calling you a traitorous ass." 

"Excellent. I'll explain the particulars when we're safely out of here, but right now I'll tell you what you need to know. Which you you want first, the good news or--" 

The ex-administrator shook her black hair out of her face and holstered her gun. Normally she would have complained about Ballard's tiresome tendency to use that phrase, but language habits were not really her primary concern at the time. "The bad news, please." 

Ballard ticked off the pieces on his hands. "There are three pieces of bad news. The first one, obviously, is recap. Negon saw everything: somebody hacked into this building's cameras, and Negon was watching those cameras. The second one is that there are three vans full of special forces agents at the street level of this building, waiting for the go-code to storm this place. I just checked the security feed. And the third -- and the worst, in the long run -- is that OZ knows a lot more than we want them to about TAIKUN." 

Garner quirked an eyebrow, missing something. "TAIKUN?" 

Ballard waited a cautious moment before replying. "I don't think you're cleared for information access yet. TAIKUN was writing the words you read off that screen." 

/Sounds like either a person or an AI.../ 

"We can talk about that later. What's the good news?" 

"The good news, Garner," said the tech-turned-traitor with a slightly guilty smile, "Consists of only one element, but it's a heavy hitter. I'm working for the Barton Foundation, and there's a heavily armed, ECM-equipped helicopter two minutes from picking us up from the roof. We're as good as saved. All we have to do now is get up there." 

The black-haired woman nodded. "Betraying OZ in style, I see. Just one question now -- why are you saving me? Isn't there some risk that I might take amnesty and turn you in later?" 

The tech removed a silencer from his pocket and screwed it onto his pistol. "I'm saving you because that is the COA that serves the needs of my organization. Besides, after what you've seen, OZ would never give you amnesty. I read that Drachenblut file." 

"Is that all?" Garner looked genuinely disappointed. 

"Well, also... you never taught me that Brett-Klearson arc-tracing algorithm that you said you would." 

She smiled and wiped the plastic dust from the exploded phone off of her uniform. "You may be a badass and you may be a spy, but I at least know that you're still a hopeless geek." 

Ballard walked to the stairs and beckoned with his gun and tried not to smirk. "That's 'a geek with an agenda and a firearm'. Come this way." 

/Looks as though we're making up rather quickly.../ 

As he began to walk up the stairs, the ex-administrator said, "Er... why aren't we taking the elevator?" 

From the fourth step up, the tech started jogging upwards while saying, "Because the explosives that my predecessor, Morovsky, installed in the support cable of the elevator one year ago were just armed." 

Garner started to jog up the stairwell. "Well thought-out." 

"We always knew that this day would come. We developed plans for it." 

As they entered the hallway of the twelfth floor and the stairway terminated, Ballard jogged down a hallway towards the roof access doors and continued his explanation. "I've already launched my viruses into this building's security system. Morovsky helped construct this building. He passed all the data on to me. I know every way to get to the upper stories of this computer center, and I've blocked them all." 

As if on cue, all the lights went out, then returned at half their strength. "Just now, all power to security cameras was totally blocked, and the various fire doors on the fourth floor locked. In seventeen seconds, all umbilical access to the basements will be closed and the fire doors on the first, fifth, and tenth floors will lock. One minute after that, the offensive/defensive laser batteries on the upper eight floors will recieve an instruction to open fire on any moving object. Those teams will be stuck down there until they cut power to the entire system." 

"Real professionals, you two. Cutting power to the system would take hours even under the best of circumstances, what with all the redundancies..." 

The blond man sighed with genuine sadness. "Actually, I think it's just me now. It's been two hours since the capture, so Morovsky is in all probability already dead. In any case, my 'professionalism' means that WE'll be shot at if we stay on this floor too much longer..." 

A red light installed in the hallway began to rotate, and there was a dim klaxon from somewhere. Ballard glanced at it and nodded. "The OPS team just entered the building. If I remember my anti-terrorist training, several of them should approach via the elevator." 

Garner nodded. "But you put explosives in the cable..." 

"Exactly. The moment the elevator recieves the command to come down, the explosives will go off and the cable will snap. The car will fall ten stories and hit the ground at the third sub-basement. I won't be surprised if it goes several meters into the colony wall." 

The pair jogged past long white rooms full of machinery and equipment, dashing toward the pair of doors at the other end of the central hallway. As they did so, Ballard glanced at his watch. "It should be happening in a few--" 

The lights went off, leaving the pair in total darkness. There was a noise like a gunshot or MS explosion and then a high screaming, hissing noise. 

Ballard grinned in the darkness. "That's the cable." 

The floor shook beneath them in a massive tremor, like a thunderclap underground or an earthquake. Shortly following that, the lights went back on again. 

"And that was the car." 

The pair jogged through the hallway at a brisk pace, listening to the various alarms blare. The hard synthetic flooring was stiff and squeaky under Garner's black standard-issue OZ boots, and every time she took another step she could feel the floor moving under her. They reached the roof access door within ten seconds. It was a rough black set of double-doors with silver bars across them, and Ballard and Garner each pushed one of them open. 

The stairs to the roof were painted black, with small ridges in each one, and they doubled back to face the other way halfway up. They terminated in a small landing below the roof access door. 

"The helicopter will be here soon," stated Ballard, his voice low and nervous. He glanced at his wristwatch again, a handsome silver model. "Thirty-five seconds until the planned touchdown time." 

Garner placed her hands on her hips. "Even with ECM, isn't a helicopter very noisy? I don't hear a thing." 

The man nodded. "Exactly. We surrounded the chopper with a redundant I-field audio muffler, though, so 95% of the noise is eliminated. It works on the same wave-cancellation principle as normal thermoptic camouflage, except on a much larger scale. Right next to it, it should sound about as loud as a car engine." 

The dark-haired woman shook her head in dismay. "How does your group have access to all of this equipment...?" 

Ballard sighed apologetically. "Again, all I can say is that my superiors haven't cleared you for much information access... right now, all I can tell you is my real name. I'm not really called 'Ballard', you know. But my actual name is really no secret... Let's go outside first, though. I'm not too eager to get toasted by lasers..." With that, he pressed on the bar and opened the door. 

The pair pushed open the door and stepped onto the helipad platform. 

The air was vaguely chilly outside the building. The colony's daytime lights had not yet come on, and all that was lit were a few streetlights below and to the sides of the mammoth computer center building. Barely audible over the ever-present hum of the colony's stabilization machines was the gradually increasing sound of a helicopter -- the sound, though, of a helicopter a kilometer away. It was nearly impossible to see anything, though, as neither's eyes had become adapted to the dark yet. 

The man sighed. "Of course, no lights." With that, he pressed a button on a remote controller, activating the floodlights on the top of the building. The lights themselves were about a quarter of a meter square and were arranged in a large circle around the landing pad. As they gradually activated, they cast blinding blue arcs of light towards the ceiling of the colony. The tech was impressed; Garner was concerned with different matters. 

"Who are you, anyway? What IS your real name...?" 

The faint noise of the helicopter was louder now, and gusts of wind -- seemingly coming from nowhere -- raked the top of the building. 

The man muttered, "Hang on a second... this is more important. Once the thing lands, it'll decloak for fifteen seconds. We *must* get on right then, or it'll leave without us!" 

Garner placed a hand over her blowing hair. "Okay, I see. Now would you just tell me your name already?" 

The tech stammered for a moment. "Well, uhm, do you know anything about the the political history of the L1 colony chain?" 

"I think I failed that class in school..." 

"I don't think you'll recognize it... it's the name of a famous colony martyr." 

"Martyr?" 

"Yeah, a real nice guy who OZ assassinated in order to destroy colony coalitions... Heero Yuy, by name." 

"Who?" 

The tech brushed his blowing blond hair out of his eyes and nonchalantly replied, 

"Heero Yuy. I'm named after a guy called Heero Yuy." 

"Nice name." 

The invisible and nearly silent helicopter blades sliced through blowing masses of cool air, and there was a highly audible bump as the transparent machine touched down in the middle of the circle of lights. 

/This has definitely been the wierdest day I've ever had in my life... and it isn't even five-thirty in the morning yet.../ 


	6. Drachenblut: Phase 06

Drachenblut, part six Gundam Wing is the property of Sotsu Agency, Bandai, and Sunrise. No infringement is intended. Please contact me at fractalforge@hotmail.com if you'd like to give me comments, and visit http://www.geocities.com/fractalforge/index.html for the latest version of all my work. All feedback is appreciated.   


DRACHENBLUT 

Chapter Six 

///////////////////////////////   


Getting onto the night-black roof of the mansion was easy for Heero. Crouching about five meters from the mansion's west side, the boy leveled his gun towards the top of the house and pressed the trigger. There was a low hydraulic noise, then the steady rushing noise of line uncoiling. The hookshot's tri-cornered blade sailed over the steep roof of the mansion like a silent bat through the darkness, towing behind it a thin strong cable. The shiny metal spikes wrapped and flailed around a small chimney, then pulled the climbing line taut. 

Heero tugged at the line a few times, cautiously, testing its strength. Carefully detatching it from the gun, he wound it around his left hand a few times, then unwound it, satisfied. The line was safe to climb. The boy reloaded the gun with a new hook and a new line, then reattached it to his vest. 

Edging close to the flat steep side of the mansion, Heero held onto the climbing line with both gloved hands while shifting his weight. The Wing pilot placed one foot slowly on the dark, night-shadowed wall of the mansion while supporting his weight on the line, then moved the other foot upwards. 

Continuing in the same cautious manner, the boy proceeded to gradually ascend the three-story wall. Keeping his legs at a forty-five degree angle to the wall to support some of his weight, and stepping with them to maintain the same angle; Heero grasped higher sections of the rope with alternating arms. The process was slow and arduous, but in the end fruitful: in less than a minute his elbows were wedged over the ledge of the roof and gutter three tall stories above the ground. Swinging a flexible leg up over the lip of the edge and the metal trough, Heero rolled silently onto the roof of the mansion and climbed up onto the edged peak of the roof. 

He crouched upon the point of the roof for a few moments, regaining his strength. While doing so, he gazed around him at the rest of the dark shingled roof, still through the thermal goggles. The neat slabs of tar and meshed fiber appeared as moon-yellow rectangles surrounded by the night's darkness; the edges separating them were needle- slashes of orange where more heat escaped. The grounds below were smaller and more comprehensible, and he could see the spot where he had climbed up from the cliff quite easily. 

Many acrophobics -- indeed, many normal people -- would have had problems retaining balance at that level. However, Heero's mind was on other things besides the height: namely, the layout of the house below him. His goggles couldn't penetrate the shingles and insulation; it was impossible to really see the forms of any halls or rooms. 

The pilot squatted, motionless, a soft gargoyle with blowing hair; considering his options. 

Moonlight glinted off of a surface on the other side of the mansion. Intrigued, Heero shifted his weight and scuttled over along the middle of the roof towards his goal. To get there he was forced to climb over another, higher section of roof; then climb down a steep incline to his older level. However, the obstacles he climbed over were moot as soon as he saw the source of the reflection. 

A skylight. 

Actually, several skylights: four sections at least as large as normal windows, arranged in a square with hardened glass bubbles covering them. 

Peering into the large and slightly dusty domes of glass, Heero could see vague shapes through his goggles. The rangefinder said that the wooden floor of the bedroom was easily four or five meters below him. 

/Cathedral ceilings... that explains the height of the stories.../ 

The heat sensors told him that the large raised rectangular shape covered in irregular soft bumps was a bed, and that there were two sleeping objects lying on it, wrapped in sheets and quilts. There was a bedside table next to the bed, cluttered with a clock and various books, and to the other side there was a door -- probably to a closet -- and there was a wooden chest near the side of the room. The shape of the skylight and the angle of the roof obstructed Heero's view of the other third of the neat bedroom. No other furniture -- but more importantly, no computer or desk. 

/His office is probably in an adjacent room.../ 

Heero shivered mechanically as a particularly strong gust of wind pulled at his clothes, then turned his attention back to the forms on the bed. He tapped a button on the side panel of his goggles and the visual matrix shifted from thermal imaging to light-amplification mode. Like someone flicking off a light, the imaging registers went from colorful to amplified black-and-white. The details became more pronounced, and shadows licked across the sleeping figures. 

The figure on the right was curled up on its side in a semi-fetal position. Its head rested on a fluffy pillow, long locks of hair flayed out around it like painted waves. The figure was obviously female, but the face was not perceptible. Heero's mind instantly retrieved her name: Doreen Westmarch Eriksen, the General's wife. 

The woman's left arm was wrapped around the midsection of the other figure. This one was larger and more built, lying face-up with its head inclined towards the woman. The dim amplified light from the digital clock was sufficient for Heero to identify the face through the goggles: it was definitely Eriksen. 

/Target located./ 

Now to find the computer. Heero braced his boots against the higher moulding around the skylight and stood up straight. There were no other reflections or domes: as far as he could tell, this was the only skylight. Further visual reconaissance was dangerous, as he'd have to attach a rope, prop himself downward and walk around the third story of the house on the outside. The risk of doing that was simply unacceptable: he might fall, and he'd also be in a seriously deficient defensive position if he was attacked. 

No power lines or cable connections ran to the outside of the house: obviously they fed into the house underground to preserve the "classical" charm of the estate. That meant it was meaningless to check for an external line leading directly into the office. 

Heero's eyes narrowed and he switched his goggles back into full-function infared. He'd just have to enter the house somehow and work from there. 

The skylights before him offered the most accessible and easiest entry to the house. The boy pondered a moment and considered that line of action. Unfortunately, there were several problems: the first and most obvious was that Eriksen and his wife were lying almost directly below the domes of glass, and they could wake at any time. The second was that the glass of the skylights was probably equipped with a security system that would go off if it was broken. 

/There's another problem: her./ 

Her. The woman. If he broke in through the windows he would need to kill her as well. He might need to kill her even if he didn't break through the windows. 

And he didn't want to kill her. 

Heero's mouth broke into a grimace. 

What other options were there? Eriksen needed to die: that was a mission order and that was immutable. But how to kill him without waking his wife? ... more accurately, how to kill him without KILLING her? His aim was certainly good enough to be sure of only killing Eriksen, but he would need to be inside the house to do it safely -- and then, waking her was might be a problem. Even a silenced gun makes some noise. 

Heero was tempted to simply write her off as collateral damage and shoot both of them, but something about that seemed wrong. The Wing pilot was no devotee of lofty ideals like Wufei, but he wanted to avoid killing her if at all possible. 

Why? He didn't know. 

In any case, the first objective was to get inside the house. Next was to download the file. After that, a solution might present itself for dealing with Eriksen. But if nothing appeared, he would have a difficult choice to make... 

Heero moved away from the skylights and looked for other windows on the top of the house. There were none. 

/I'll just have to go in through a side window. I don't like the idea, but it's still safer than trying to bypass a door's security system.../ 

Heero switched his goggles into infared mode. Next, the Wing pilot removed the hookshot from his vest and pressed a switch on it. The tri-cornered metal spike ejected from the pistol with no force, and the hookshot loosened its tight hold on the running line. It was now possible to pull out cord easily. Heero crept over the ridge of the roof to the main chimney, then braced the spike against a sharp stone edge so that it pulled tight. After measuring out a good length of line, he wound it around the stone pillar thrice. The line was now fast around the chimney of the mansion. 

Heero adjusted the tension controls on the hookshot and set it to the slowest release setting available. The boy walked backwards to the nearest edge of the roof and slipped his hand securely into the hookshot pistol, then took an almost imperceptible deep breath. 

Then he leaned back, weight on his heels, above the three-story drop until he was at about a forty-five degree angle; held only by the thin climbing line and the friction of his shoes on the shingles. 

He breathed outward and gingerly pressed the trigger to gradually release a small amount of line. The angle at which he was held gradually lessened until he was almost horizontal -- then he took a simple step downwards off of the shingles and planted his foot on the siding of the mansion. Now, essentially in the same position as had been while climbing up, Heero released enough line for him to walk down, nearly horizontal, to the level of the third-story windows. 

Heero, holding onto the hookshot with his right hand, let his legs slip off of the wall and turn to a vertical position. His right arm was pulled taut above his body, his grip on the hookshot pistol now supporting all of his weight. He was now an arm's length away from a large window. 

The suspended boy took a moment to listen to the sounds of the night. Birds, mostly in the distance. What sounded like an owl. A vague hum of machinery, probably a generator of some sort. Crickets, of course, not as loud as in summer but still present. The sky above him showed an empty hole in the thick cloud layer, and now more stars beside the brilliant moon shone down upon the landscape. A gentle wind, warm somehow, blew in and gently rocked him on the line. 

/The night.../ 

Heero shook his head. There was no time for that now. 

He looked into the window facing him. It was larger than a normal window, perhaps a meter by a meter. The room inside was vacant, with the door shut: it appeared to be a guest bedroom, furnished in practical elegance. The room contained a dresser and a large mirror, several plush chairs, and various lamps and tables. The double bed, made up with a quilt and several pillows, was pushed up against the window frame 

/The window... it's probably equipped with some alarm. All I can do is to try and jam its transmitter.../ 

The pilot unsnapped a pocket in his vest and removed a small cellular phone. He tapped a few buttons on it, watched the screen light up with static, then returned it to where it came from. 

/I'll have to leave the phone near the window if I want the jamming effect to persist after I leave... no matter. I can always modify another one./   
  
With that thought, Heero reached down and removed a combat knife -- modified especially for this purpose -- from a sheath attached to his thigh. All fifteen centimeters of the serrated blade gleamed in the moonlight. The boy glanced at the needle-sharp tip of the knife, then brought the tip into contact with the glass of the window. He moved it a few centimeters and listened for the almost imperceptibly high squeal of metal on glass. The noise was strangely disturbing, like nails on a blackboard. 

The boy grimaced one final time, listened again for ambient noise, and finally scraped the tip of the knife about the window in an almost perfect circle, the edges almost touching the windowframe. The cutting squeal sounded almost painfully loud against the muted sounds of the night, but Heero knew (intellectually at least) that no one in the house could have heard it. 

After inspecting the circle he had cut, Heero returned the knife to its sheath and pushed the circular pane of glass inward with his gloved left hand. 

It fell noiselessly and perfectly onto the quilt and pillows of the bed. 

Heero toed himself onto the windowframe, released a little more line, bent backwards, and walked through the empty hole in the pane in a manner that Duo had once referred to as "The Limbo". He removed the jamming cell phone from his pocket and placed it on the windowsill, set the hookshot down on a pillow and set its tension level for his escape, and shook out his cramping right arm. 

/First objective: successful./ 

He was inside. 

Utter silence. Heero remained perfectly still for ten seconds or so, then crept off of the bed onto the floor and across the room to the door. He listened at the white-panelled slab of wood for a while, then unlatched it (pushing up on the knob all the while to avoid creaking) and quietly entered the hallway. 

The infared goggles told him nothing of the colors of objects, only their outline, distance, and relative heat levels. However, now that he was inside the warmer interior of the house, objects began to appear in red rather than the cooler yellow of the outdoors. He was definitely able to percieve his surroundings: he was standing in the middle of a wide hallway. The hall was decorated well, with various indecipherable pictures framed and hung about the walls. An ornate carpet of some sort ran lengthwise down the hallway. The light fixtures were mounted on the walls, doubtless antiques of some sort. Directly in front of him was a doorframe (probably leading to a similar room to the one he had just been in), and there was another set of two opposing doors a few meters to his left. At the very end of the hallway to his left was another door, this one open a crack. 

/This wing of the house is probably the guest wing... in which case, this room on the end shouldn't be anything important. Still, I should look at it./ 

Heero turned left and crept along the hall towards the unknown doorway. When he reached it, he slowly pushed it open to find an elaborate and dusty bathroom, obviously out of frequent use. 

/Definitely the guest wing./ 

The pilot turned and walked towards the opposite end of the hallway, where it opened into a larger room. As Heero moved nearer and nearer the corner, he drew his pistol from its holster and pulled it close to his cheek. He listened at the corner for a few seconds, then edged his head around it. As no one was immediately visible, he moved out into the open and dropped down into a crouch. 

The room seemed to be the main room of the house: it was three stories tall and circular, built around a central stairway that curved up from the ground floor to a landing on the second story, finally to end on the third story on the other side of the room. A massive and ornate chandelier, unlit, dangled from the center of the ceiling. The hallway Heero had come from opened onto a large carpeted landing decorated with various chairs, paintings and carpets. 

On the center of the landing, directly opposing the front entrance of the mansion, was a large set of double-doors. 

/A library? A games-room?/ 

On the side of the landing opposite Heero, next to the end of the stairway, was another hallway. 

/Eriksen's room is down in that wing. Probably the last on the left.../ 

Heero decided to move to the double-doors first. Pistol still in hand, the noises gone now except for a periodic creaking (probably the house settling), Heero moved to the double-doors. These were made of some unidentifiable heavy wood, but they swung outwards fairly easily. Heero peeked into the room and saw a railing and balcony running fully around a large gap in the middle. It was the top floor of a large library and den. A circular staircase connected the third floor of the building to the second at the opposite end of the room. The walls of this floor were nothing but bookcases and a large, mobile ladder on runners. 

Heero abandoned the double-doors, shutting them quietly, and moved across to the other wing. Creeping along close to the ground, Heero made his way along the carpet until he was crouching on the top of the stairs, waiting to turn the corner into the wing of the house where Eriksen slept. 

/First deal with the computer. Then take out the General.../ 

Heero closed his eyes. The garish red of the infared goggles fled from his vision. He squinted, trying to block out all sight, listening for anything at all. 

Total silence for a few seconds. Then he heard something that sounded like a human voice... but it was very distant, and very slight. It could have been a bird. It might have been the house settling, too. 

/Okay./ 

Heero set his expression and opened his eyes and moved silently down the hall. This hall was set up in a similar manner to the last one: two facing sets of doors and a door at the end. The door on the end was probably the bathroom. Heero crept down the hallway, pressing his ear up against each door. 

At the first one on the right, Heero heard absolutely nothing. At the one opposite it, the boy heard a vague humming noise, like a fan of some kind. 

/Probably the computer room./ 

Heero drew his pistol, then slowly turned the doorknob. It backed up in his hand, locked. He rattled it silently. It did not give. 

/It's definitely here./ 

The Wing pilot glanced at his watch. It was 3:07 AM. 

/There's only a keyhole, no cardkey input or keypad. It's only a mechanical lock. I could try and pick it, but that would take time. If I tried to blow it open or melt it, it could trip an alarm... and I don't have any explosives that could do the job quietly./ 

Heero heard a stirring from down the hall. 

/Solution./ 

/Someone is getting out of bed. An opening.../ 

He crept up the hallway, staying as close to the ground and as quiet as possible. His pistol was heavy in his hand, and despite his tight grip it didn't seem comfortable or steady. The noise had come from the room on the left side of the hallway. Heero moved close to the near side of the doorframe, staying very low and putting his head against the wall. 

/A few footsteps, a creak. A female-sounding yawn. She's moving closer. It's the General's wife.../ 

/This door opens outward and in this direction, and stops when about three-quarters open... so I'll be hidden if she leaves the door open. But if she closes the door and looks back, then I'll have to shoot her.../ 

Heero readied his gun, pressing the cool barrel against his cheek. His pack was pressing into the wall behind him, and his eyes narrowed behind the goggles. It was time to go into action. He craned his head forward and around the corner towards the doorway. The infared vision gave a slight hint of a heat source behind the wooden door, the sillhouette staggering vaguely towards the doorway. 

/Only a few more steps.../ 

The creak of the door was incredibly loud compared to the slight noises Heero was accustomed to hearing. The door swung quickly outward on unoiled hinges. 

Heero's heart moved along at a constant pace as Doreen Westmarch Eriksen turned left, yawned again, and headed down toward the bathroom. She was clad in some sort of long bathrobe and big slippers with fuzzy tufts around the ankles. Her gait was slow and dizzy yet sure, the walk of someone who can perfectly navigate their house while blindfolded and robbed of hearing. She yawned again lazily. 

She walked eight paces in the darkness to the bathroom door, pulled it open, and walked inwards. Heero caught a glimpse of her face when she turned left again and flicked on a light. Then she closed the door and latched it, not looking back. 

Heero exhaled very quietly, then moved from his crouch. He slowly stuck his head past the doorframe and looked inside toward the bed. Eriksen slept calmly, in the same position he'd been when Heero had peered in through the skylights. The man was snoring softly, his head nestled against his pillow, a quilt pulled up close to his chin. 

Heero moved so that he was completely in the doorway, took two steps forward, and froze. 

There was a sound, a vague smooth rushing noise. It took Heero half a second to realize that it was only running water. 

/Why is she running water?/ 

No matter. Heero advanced toward the bed. He could now see the residual heat left on the sheets by the General's wife. Through the goggles, the bed practically radiated warmth. The rest of the room looked familiar from when he'd seen it from above. Making no noise, he moved to the side the man was facing, where his wife had slept until a few moments ago. Moonlight from the skylights above streamed into the room, as the moon was almost directly overhead. 

/I need to confirm that it's him.../ 

Heero reached up and switched his goggles into night-vision mode. The red glow faded and was replaced by a more detailed and contoured black-and-white image. He glanced at Eriksen's face. It was the same face he'd seen in photographs, but now it seemed happier, peaceful, rather than formal and stiff. He was smiling slightly, mouth open, eyes softly shut together. 

The boy raised the gun and aimed it at the man's forehead. 

The water was still running in the bathroom. The moonlight was streaming in through the skylights. The man was still snoring. 

Heero switched the goggles back to infared mode, obscuring the details of the man's face. He was more comfortable doing it this way. 

/It's time./ 

There was two pounds of pressure against his trigger finger, then a swishing noise. A blank dot appeared on Eriksen's forehead. There was a moaning rattle and then no sound at all. 

Heero's eyes closed for a moment, but he did not smile. 

/Second objective: successful./ 

He reached toward the dead man's throat. His hands, sense of touch decreased by electrical gloves, touched upon a thin chain. Heero ran his fingers down it quickly to its terminating point: a small, thin metal key. The boy quickly pulled the chain off of the man's neck and grasped the key in his left hand. 

/The key to the computer room../ 

He turned left, away from the bed, and turned quickly towards the door. The key was light and solid against the gloves, and the chain fell comfortingly around a finger. 

Heero realized that the noise of running water had stopped. A wave of panic hit him. He looked up and there was a thin human-shaped red echo in his vision. 

/But this was a silenced gun! How could she be back already..?!/ 

But she was already back; 

/Kill her./ 

She was standing, stupefied, in the doorway; 

/Do it now./ 

She was watching Heero beneath the skylights and the moon; 

/Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it NOW!/ 

She was breathing quickly; 

/Think of the colonies. Think of the mission. Think of your orders./ 

She was moving backwards, stepping away into the hall; 

/Think of everyone you know./ 

She was raising her arms toward her face... 

/DO IT NOW...!/ 

...and she began to scream. 

She screamed for several seconds, a high-pitched bending wail, before Heero raised his gun again and pressed against the trigger several times. He did not hear the soft tap of the ejected shells hitting the carpet, nor did he hear the woman's death rattle. All Heero heard was the regular beating of his own heart. 

Afterwards, he stood still, not lowering his gun, for a moment or two. A few thoughts went through his mind, mostly of his own incompetence and inadequacy as a soldier. The moon still shone through the skylights, but he was facing away from the light now. There was no breathing except for his own silent breaths, and no noise save the constant, unchanging rhythm of his own heart. 

He shook his head and walked out of the door, stepping over Doreen Westmarch Eriksen's body as he went. Heero did not look back as he walked down the hall. The pistol was hot and heavy as he slid it into his holster. 

The door to the study opened easily as he turned the key in the lock. Heero left the key there, its lanyard hanging limply beneath it. He turned on the light and ripped off his goggles, dropping them onto the floor. The piercing brightness of white light stung his eyes for a moment, but he ignored the shock and moved inward. 

The room was a small office, with various low bookshelves on the floor beneath several framed diplomas and certificates. The desk faced the doorway and was topped with a small computer system, various file folders, and a thick book or two. The computer was alrwady on and its fan was gently humming. 

Heero moved to the desk, thrust the chair up against the window, and began to rifle through the clutter. Just papers, no datadisks or backup tape. Nothing in the large drawer except extra stationary, pens and pencils, and a ruler. One drawer was completely full of reciepts, another contained household bills -- credit card bills, utility bills, and so forth. A third held a bank passbook and some financial files. Heero grabbed the passbook and stuffed it into an empty pocket. The last drawer was locked. 

Before trying to break into the computer, Heero examined the locked drawer. The desk was obviously an antique, wooden and solid; and the lock was a small keyhole. It couldn't be a very complex locking mechanism. The boy reached into his pack and withdrew his set of lockpicks. He used a familiar pick to quickly probe and examine the interior of the lock, and managed to have the drawer open within fifteen seconds. 

The now unlocked drawer was heavy as he pulled it out, and it contained what seemed to be a stash of money: neat rows of bills and banknotes, as well as four more passbooks. Heero decided to look for the file first, then decide what to do with the money. 

The computer, on, was sitting, stable, at the command prompt of the OZ operating system. Heero began to type in commands, stripping away file directories and hierarchies, simplifying the file structure of the computer. The methods he used were mostly undocumented commands, bugs, and hidden features he'd learned from the leaked notes of an OZ system designer. 

Seven commands and an override code revealed a few hundred sectors allocated to a single hidden, locked, and encrypted file, "drachenblutRS3Ksys.io." 

Located. Heero ripped a datadisk out of his pack and slid it into the drive of the machine. He could tell by the file size and storage prefixes that it was the one he'd been looking for. The boy typed in several commands for disk access, then gave the command to rewrite the file on the datadisk. It occurred to him for a moment that the file was quite easy to locate and copy... but he dismissed the thought when he considered that decryption would be quite another matter. 

As Heero waited for the machine to finish, he removed his pack from his back and set it down on the floor. There was definitely some extra room in there... 

He frowned for a moment, considering the possibilities. Then he knelt down on the floor and reached forward. The pilot began to move the cash and passbooks from the bottom drawer into his pack. He needed some parts for Wing Gundam that were too common and too minor to bother stealing, and the mission ahead -- whatever it might be -- would probably require funding of some sort. Feeling an unpleasant but quite unidentifiable sensation inside his chest and throat, Heero uneasily closed up his pack. 

The file was finished. Heero ejected the datadisk from the computer, shut off its power, slammed shut all of the drawers, and slid the disk into a pocket. He picked up his goggles from the floor, put them on his head, and set them to infared mode. Finally, he turned off the light as he went out of the study, and locked the door behind him. 

He glanced to his left for a moment. The general's wife's body was still on the floor there. 

No more than six or seven meters away from him. One of her arms was pinned beneath her torso, the other was stretched forward towards the bed in the next room. It looked as though she was reaching for something. 

An odd sense of dizziness moved through his body. 

What was this...? 

His hands, sticky and tight inside electrical gloves, tightened around something invisible. 

He pressed his tongue tight against the roof of his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to ignore the waves of sensation. 

Heero closed his eyes and turned. He found himself running away. 

He darted through the first hallway, padded around the landing, turned a quick corner at the door and dashed through the guest bedroom. The boy reached for the hookshot and gripped its surface and moved out the window quickly. The cooler air of the outdoors, its ambient noise, its smell of approaching rain, touched his body and he shivered quietly. 

He pressed the trigger and released some line, and he dropped the three stories quite quickly. Letting go of the hookshot while almost three meters above the ground, the pilot hit the cold earth running. The blurs of bushes and gardens flew past him like phantoms. The wind sang inside his ears beneath the remaining noise. He did not stop running until he had reached the cliff and pressed a key sequence on the remote unit. 

Hundreds of meters below, underwater, Wing Gundam's thrusters exploded into full activation. Slicing through the surface of the water like a blade and rising upwards as though driven by a rocket, the mecha roared upward to hover still beside the cliff. As the maching rocked slowly, suspended in midair, the boy took a moment to absorb the noise of the active thrusters. 

The noise was regular and unbelievably loud, blasting outward like constant static. He leaned forward on his knees and listened more, feeling the masking vibrations shake his entire body, absorbing the concussive loudness. 

Heero ripped off his left glove, then gazed at his hand through his goggles. It twitched and moved independently of his will. 

Heero knelt there for a few hidden moments, then shook his head, rose up, and leaped forward over the edge of the cliff towards the cockpit. 

/I know exactly what I'm doing./ 

His hands, one gloved, the other bare, clamped onto the bar mounted to the hatch. 

/I know exactly where I'm going./ 

He pulled himself up into the cockpit and slammed his hand against the control panel, closing the door. The panels sealed together and locked, and the cockpit hissed as it began to pressurize. 

/I know exactly who I am./ 

Heero pressed a key and fell back into the seat as the mecha lurched forward. 

He was barely into the acceleration cycle when he noticed a flashing yellow light on the left display board. A new transmission had come in. 

He pressed a few keys and closed his eyes and listened to his orders. 


End file.
